Qifa Nabki
Qifa Nabki
Inscriptions in the Desert
I’ve written an essay for The New Yorker‘s Culture Desk about the fascinating research of Ahmad Al-Jallad, a scholar of Semitic linguistics and ancient epigraphy. The first few paragraphs of the piece are below, with a link to the rest on the magazine’s webpage. Some readers may also be interested in a piece I wrote about … Continue reading
On “Letters from Baghdad”
What Gertrude Bell’s Letters Remind Us About the Founding of Iraq Elias Muhanna | NewYorker.com (Culture Desk) I first encountered the work of the British traveller, archeologist, and spy Gertrude Bell many years ago, while hunting in the archives for a Carmelite priest named Père Anastase-Marie de Saint-Élie, an obscure figure in the history of Arabic … Continue reading
On Reza Aslan’s “Believer”
Last month, I wrote an essay for NewYorker.com about Reza Aslan’s new CNN show, “Believer.” Here’s the first paragraph with a link to the rest of the piece. In other news, I’m on my way to Lebanon this evening to attend the School of Mamluk Studies’ annual conference, which is being held this year at the … Continue reading
Assad and ISIS
A veteran journalist, Roy Gutman, has written a series of three articles for the Daily Beast with the suggestive titles, “Assad Henchman: Here’s How We Built ISIS” (part 1); “How Assad Staged Alqaeda Bombings” (part 2); and “How ISIS returned to Syria” (part 3). The gist of the series is that the Assad regime was complicit … Continue reading
Aoun and the Future
A couple of years ago, shortly before the end of President Michel Sleiman’s term in office, I wrote an essay asking why Lebanon needed a President, given the relative powerlessness of the position. Here’s the payoff paragraph: Twenty-five years after Ta’if inaugurated Lebanon’s Second Republic and nearly nine years after the Syrian departure gave us a new, mysterious set … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…