I will continue today with the Beirut book fair and some of the books I selected, or were given to me, in the hope that readers obtain these books. There was a seminar on Emir Shakib Arslan, known as the prince of rhetoric, and I was given his book, “A Record of Events in the Arab World,” which covers the 1800-1950 period. It was edited by my professor and friend, the late Youssef Ibish, along with Touma Arida and Youssef al-Khoury. The works of Shakib Arslan are being published thanks to the efforts of his daughter, May, the wife of Kamal Jumblatt, and mother of Walid Jumblatt. “A Record” is the fruit of this effort, which covers Arslan's correspondence with Mohammed Abdo, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Mohammed Rashid Rida and others. Personally, I cannot forget the emir's book on his travels in which he followed the remnants of the Arabs (or Saracens, a word that used to be used for Arab Muslims during the Middle Ages, even though today it means Circassians), around the region of the Alps. The Arabs controlled the passages to the Alps even after the fall of Andalusia, and imposed a tax on commercial caravans. The emir found they were portrayed negatively in history, which was recorded by their enemies in the monasteries. He spoke of villages in the region near the city of Chur, whose inhabitants have Arab features, after they settled in the area and mixed with its people. I am familiar with Chur, where the trains change on their way to skiing areas. “A Record of Events in the Arab World” begins with news of the administrative divisions of the Ottoman state in Bilad al-Sham, and ends with the events of 30 December 1950, when King Abdullah of Jordan issued a decree appointing Ragheb Pasha Nashashibi minister of state, after he was minister of transport. In between, there was an item about 16 January 1922, from al-Bashir newspaper. It was a census of Beirut residents, which found there to be: 37,000 Muslims, 18,000 Maronites, 14,000 Eastern Orthodox, 5,000 Eastern Catholic, and 4,000 Jews, followed by Druze, Shiites, Protestants, Armenians and many others. In an item from 7 November 1946, MP Sabri Hamadeh and seven of his colleagues submitted a law proposal to Parliament, demanding the abolishment of sectarianism and the amendment of Article 95 of the Constitution, which enshrines it. The news from 1947 and 1948 from Palestine is very painful. Where were we? And where are we now? There is a lot of news about Israeli terrorism, such as the well-known assassination of Count Bernadotte and the destruction of the King David Hotel. There is also the news about Jews using chemical weapons about the Egyptian Army. On 8 August 1948, the leader of the holy jihad was killed in the battle of al-Qastal and on the next day came the Deir Yassin massacre, followed on 19 April by the fall of Tabaraya. On 22 April, British forces withdrew from Haifa, which fell to the Jews and on 8 May, Jaffa fell, followed on 10 May by Safad. On 15 May, Ben Gurion announced the establishment of the state of Israel. From Shakib Arslan to something very different: a book entitled “Mary in the Quran”, by Dr. Husn Abboud. I asked for her book in the morning of the book fair and returned in the evening to the nearby BIEL center to attend the wedding of Wassef and Layal, her son, and the daughter of a dear friend, Dr. Mohammed Bulbul. I will suffice today by noting the book, since I have only read its introduction, which was written by Dr. Radwan al-Sayyed, who was with us at the wedding, and two chapters on sources and methodology, followed by the Sura of Maryam (Mary) in the Quran, and the form of literary units. I will only say that Dr. Hisham Sharabi would have been very happy with this work, which was originally a Ph.D. dissertation, because he once asked me at Georgetown University to write a paper on women in the Quran. I ended with Mary, and how her role in Islam was much more important than in Christianity. Some Andalusian scholars, such as Ibn Hazm, consider her a prophet, because the Angel Gabriel spoke only to prophets. What I have written is certainly only a pebble in the sea of the book by our dear friend Husn. I have another book, “One Thousand and One Fatwas: Muslims in the Grip of the Chaos of Fatwas”, by Fouad Matar, a friend and colleague. I do not think that anyone can deny the importance of the topic. Fouad gave me the book in London and I went to Beirut the next day, and bought a copy at the book fair, to read on the way back. Finally, there is “Tonight I Will Confess,” by Rima Karaki and published by Dar al-Arabiyya lil-‘Ulum / Publishers, just like Fouad Matar's book. I sat with Fouad while he was signing copies of his book for the public, and I noticed that he was alone, while the previous day, I had followed Rima's book signing, under the lights of television cameras and newspaper photographers. I read some of the articles by Rima, who comes to the world of writing from the world of audiovisual media. I found the book courageous and funny, which is a good enough mix. I will return to her book in the future. [email protected]
