Consequences of Displacement after the Gulf Crisis: A Study of the Responses of 207 Displaced Palestinian and Jordanian Workers

Throughout the war period and immediately thereafter, punitive measures were instituted against Jordanian nationals working in the Gulf; hundreds of thousands were dismissed from their jobs without compensation, and many more were expelled from the Gulf, leaving behind personal belongings, as well as bitter memories. The purpose of this study is to: (1) investigate the effects of the Gulf Crisis on the amount of annual contributions to Jordan's economy by Gulf workers; (2) measure the amount of property loss incurred by Gulf workers as a result of the displacement; (3) examine the duration of unemployment caused among the displaced workers; and (4) measure attitudinal changes among the displaced workers regarding their economic future and the future of Jordan's economy.     

A Theory of Reduplication: Eightfold Meters in Classical Persian Poetry

It is a known fact that classical Persian poets were partial to poetic meters composed of eight feet, known as muthamman. On this topic, however, two issues remain unsolved: How did the Persian poets devise these meters in the first place? Despite their flagrant predilection for eightfold meters, why did the Persians never use such meters as sarī? and qarīb in this form? This paper argues that the Persians, influenced by the structure of the Arabic eightfold base meters, crafted their muthamman meters after a specific process of reduplication. This theory also accounts for the lack of eightfold sarī? and qarīb meters, their structure being incompatible with the reduplication process.     

Obsidian sources in highland Yemen and their relevance to archaeological research in the Red Sea region

The Red Sea and surrounding area formed through dynamic uplift and rifting of Afro-Arabia, and associated volcanism (both oceanic and continental in character). As a result, volcanic landforms and products are widespread and play a vital role in the natural and cultural landscapes of humans occupying the highlands and lowlands on both sides of the Red Sea. Archaeologists have suggested for some time that Afro-Arabian trade in obsidian had its roots in the prehistoric period and that the region was very likely the source of an abundance of obsidian artefacts found as far afield as Egypt, the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia, and which do not match the well-known Anatolian, Transcaucasian or Mediterranean sources. Nonetheless, the southern Red Sea is one of the few obsidian-rich regions exploited in antiquity that has been barely investigated. In this paper, we highlight new geochemical analyses (carried out by LA-ICP-MS) of obsidian sources in Southern Arabia and beyond, that enhance our knowledge of obsidian exploitation from as early as the Neolithic period, and which enable us to evaluate the role that highland Yemen obsidian sources played in prehistoric long-distance trade. In addition, we present new evidence for explosive volcanic eruptions that likely affected the highland populations of Yemen in the 4th millennium BC.     

Islam intensified: snapshot historiography and the making of Muslim identities

The celebrated, and oft-criticised, 1001 Inventions exhibition offered a particular vision of Islam and Muslims in the West that is imbedded in the postcolonial reality of the post-9/11 world. Built around the coupling of Islam and science, the exhibition and its critics negotiate the place of Muslims in the contemporary world as mapped through the simultaneous intensification of Islam and science as epistemological categories. Such intensification is built on a symmetrical epistemology that deploys science as a universal value perceivable in snapshot historiographies. The article here argues that the exhibition and connected narratives, seen as examples of producing Muslim identities in the West, use the juncture of Islam and science, written in conforming agency, to re-inscribe and affirm the definition of Islam as a core and unchanging identity for Muslims.