Seminar on Understanding the Middle East On January 10, 2020, King Qaboos, who had ruled Oman for nearly half a century since his accession to the throne in 1970, passed away. How should we understand the situation in the Gulf, which is attracting attention due to rising tensions between Iran and the U.S. and Japan’s […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula,” (14th session) In medieval Yemen, slaves or supposedly emancipated slaves were engaged in manual labor for the rulers, kept as concubines, or held high political and military positions as eunuchs. On the other hand, the historical record also depicts a group of human beings, […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula,” (13th session) Masks, known as Burqa or Battoulah, have been worn routinely by women in the Persian (Arabian) Gulf coastal region and even in East Africa for about 500 years. This seminar will examine the various relationships between masks and women that have changed […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula” (12th session) The civil war in Yemen since 2015 has been called “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis” (United Nations) and is an extremely difficult case of civil war to understand. Reasons and objectives of the civil war are unclear. It is also difficult to […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula” (11th session) Japan relies on imports for the majority of its oil, and nearly 90% of its oil comes from the Middle East, especially from the Persian Gulf countries. Also, about 20% of natural gas comes from the Middle East. Although the share of […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula” (10th session) Saudi Arabia, which occupies a large part of the Arabian Peninsula, is often described as the most strictly Islamic country in the world. This seminar will unpack this “strictness” in terms of both the country’s interpretation of Islam and its application of […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula” (9th session) The securing and effective use of water resources is one of the most important domestic policy issues in Middle Eastern countries, and is also sometimes discussed as an international or diplomatic issue. Using Oman as a case, this seminar explains traditional methods […]
2019 Public Seminar “History, Culture, and Society in the Arabian Peninsula” (8th session) Family businesses owned and operated by specific families are deeply rooted in the economies and societies of Middle Eastern countries. Some family businesses have expanded and diversified their operations to form conglomerates that occupy oligopolistic positions in their respective industrial sectors. Many of these family businesses […]
Special Lecture Already in Pre-Islamic times people from South-East Arabia were known as navigators and settlers in the Indian Ocean rim. Written as well as archaeological sources prove Omani maritime activities in the Indian Ocean which connected Oman with the Ancient Oriental civilization as well as with the Hindus valley civilization from the 3rd millennium […]
Special Lecture Over recent years Ibadi siyar have attracted increasing interest among Islamic scholars in the West for three reasons: 1) Up to the 2nd/8th century they continued to be written in the ‘original’ Arabic literary style. 2) Their interpretation of early Islamic history is markedly different from that of the Sunni/Shiite tradition. 3) They […]
