Salmiya

I know that this is going to be provocative. Comments and clarifications from people with similar experience are most welcome. A couple of years ago, I've read about a mafrash front of the Shahsavan confederation with a somewhat different and, well, appealing design. It had apparently been offered years ago at a German auction house specializing in antique, "collectible", textiles at an estimated 7,500 Euros. I am not (or better no longer) sure, however, whether it could achieve that price or even was sold at that time. The auctioneer suggested as origin "Northwestern Persia (sic!), Azerbaidjan (a combination which immediately discredits him as expert, of course), 1st half 19th c. Size: ca. 53x95cm." And further: "Very finely woven sumakh panel in pleasant colours originating from Qeydar, a small town south of Zandjan in the Khamseh district. – Minor re-weaves in the outer border; in good condition." There was a reference for the o...

Rug dealers are never scholars, and neither are collectors who, after some time, become inevitably dealers. Scholars are experts who do not need to own "collectibles" to study them. Having lived in the Middle East for a couple of years I had been infected with the carpet bug from the very beginning. Considering myself a "collector", even after some years of buying what interests me, would be an exaggeration. I have been, though, in contact with a variety of antique rug dealers over the years and have learned to be suspicious of, in particular, western self-declared pundits. What they desperately need is information regarding provenance and age. Otherwise it would be difficult to sell their inferior textiles (they keep, of course, their better pieces). Having said that, I can only thank a New York collector/dealer/expert who I have recently come across for his advice: not to buy but just enjoy and, well, study! Of all Turkmen weavings I had always been fascinat...

  I had missed Sultan Qaboos' Grand Mosque when in Oman last time, about 7 years ago. We visited the marvellous mosque, which has been finished only in 2001, on Christmas Eve. It now harbors the world's second largest hand-woven carpet and chandelier (after those in Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan mosque in Abu Dhabi which has been installed only in 2010). The mosque in Oman features architectural gems and recalls, at the same time, Cairo's Ibn Tulun and Esfahan's Shah mosque, the Timurid floral and Arabesque tiles in its Friday mosque, Safavid muqarna s, Persian weaving art and a Paradise garden.          On Christmas Day, we attended the mass in the Protestant Church in Ghala, at only a couple of hundred meters distant from the Grand Mosque (although heavy construction work would have made it impossible to walk). I was not really prepared to meet an evangelizing Christian there who ...

What can you do in Oman when you have just a couple of days? We were lucky that Ahmad, a fisherman from beautiful Sur and cousin of a friend, promised to drive us to Nizwa. Friday market with cattle and goat on sale. Many tourists and generally no collectible souvenirs. We had lunch in a restaurant only with separate rooms for families.       We then went to Misfah, a small village in the mountains with spectacular views into canyon-like wadis with subtropical (actually tropical!) vegetation. The road to Al-Hamra and Misfah offers spectacular view at Oman's highest mountain, Jebel Shams (3009 m).       Ahmed Saleh Al Araimi may be hired as guide also for longer tours by emailing him: teenh2001@yahoo.com . 

A couple of weeks before the opening ceremony, I stumbled over the brand new Opera House in Muscat on the internet. The program included Turandot, Carmen and, well, Pjotr Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake . When it was dead-easy to purchase tickets online, I planned to spend Christmas once more in the Middle East. The performance of the world class Mariinsky Ballet on opening night was marvelous, and so was the opera house in Al Qurum.                  

While 2011 comes to an end, New Year's pledges are hard to formulate. Generally, predictions are unreliable, and what had happened this year hardly anybody had envisaged one year ago. So, there might be some hope for 2012. The year started promising, millions of North Africans eventually lost patience after realizing that nothing had to be expected in the aftermath of President Obama's historical speech in Cairo of June 4, 2009, just one week before Iran's disputed presidential election. Whether WikiLeak's diplomatic cables ignited what is now known as Arab Spring is not clear, but they certainly contributed to it. The world won't be the same after the brave publication of the cables. If there had been trust in U.S. foreign policy, it has vanished. If anybody had kept faith with Obama's integrity his hypocrisy must have come as a shock. Ongoing perplexity of world leaders on how to deal with the aggravating global financial crisis, or catastrophic effects ...

http://youtu.be/BwQuMUe5hfk Please see the video here . Where have I been ten years ago? Well, I don’t know. Ten years ago, Ahmad Shah Masoud, the leader of the Northern Alliance, had been assassinated by Al Qaeda, but I have learned about that critical event long time after the killing. I suppose I have written about my whereabouts two days later already. It was one of these significant emotional events in life you won’t ever forget (and no one in the world did). I had actually been filling packing boxes all day looking forward to a critical move, to the Middle East. I had got a job offer at Kuwait University. My new colleagues were awaiting me (but, honestly, after the Twin Towers and Pentagon had been hit and hit again, not anymore). The first TV commentators mentioned the world wouldn’t be the same after the assault. They had been right, of course. When having arrived in Kuwait, I and my colleagues (who were surprised that I had made it) were eagerly or skeptically awaiting t...

Thanks to Intlxpatr , who loved to live there too, I came across this beautiful little piece. Kuwait changed sometimes during two-month summer vacations much. After four years, it has beautified so much. Amazing. I used to live close to Salmiya's wonderful corniche. Miss it much.

We just returned from a short trip to Cairo. We spoke with a few people about the revolution. There is certainly hope but  not really the spirit of change. Egyptians have listened to President Obama's historical speech on June 4, 2009 in Cairo but also have noted that his words on America's support of democracy all over the world were not meant very seriously. That the revolution in Egypt is now irreversible may be an over-opimistic conclusion by Mohamed ElBaradei who might run for presidency in September but without any real chance. See his interview with Charlie Rose while promoting his new book The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times   here .

These days, Kuwaiti citizens celebrate their “Golden Independence Anniversary” and 20 years of liberation from Saddam Hussein’s hordes. And HH Amir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is five years in power, of course. 50-20-5. The city is beautifully illuminated and each citizen has got 1000 dinars ($3500) already. Panem et circensis. Uproars in North Africa and even Bahrain seem not to affect the Kuwaitis, although last week has seen some protests of bedouns, or stateless people. I remember similar celebrations when one of the current Amir’s predecessors, HH Jaber al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah (“Baba Jaber”), returned in 2002 from treatment in the United States after having recovered from a mild stroke. We got stuck in the traffic deadlock on our way back to Salwa, we had to walk. Young people were enthusiastically dancing on the cars. Kuwaitis love their Amirs. When once asking one of my bright Kuwaiti student what exactly they were celebrating on February 25/26, she responded...

On my numerous visits to Iran during the last decade I have rarely come across nomads. Once, when being on trips from the southern city of Shiraz to Pasargadae and the Margoon waterfalls in the Zagros mountains, my young companion pointed to migrating ‘gypsies’ as the Qashqa’i people were sometimes called by ordinary Iranians. They were on the move north to escape from the scorching heat during the summer months, I was told. It wasn’t clear whether he wanted to express his respect for the free will of the free people in a theocratic dictatorship who won’t be in need for the accomplishments of modern civilization; or rather a slight contempt. What I came across of, however, were their beautiful products, textiles and rugs, which frequently added to my growing collection of tribal art of the Middle East. In retrospect, one had to concede that my craving for high quality pieces only intensified when returns to the Middle East became more difficult. And, as I was told recently, those piec...