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Podcasts on the Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic(ate) Studies

By N.A. Mansour

Ever since podcasting hit the scene in the early 2000s, there has been no shortage of content on the Middle East, North Africa, the Islamicate world, and on Muslims. We’ve assembled a list here –subject to eventual updates and suggestions– of podcasts on history, current events, and culture from the Middle East, North Africa, the Balkans and the Islamic(ate) world more generally. We have also included a few other podcasts on Muslim cultural and intellectual matters. This list is by no means exhaustive and we look forward to developing it more: you can DM us suggestions on Twitter or Facebook and you can email us or comment below. 

For those of you who are uninitiated in the ways of podcasts, a basic guide: you can either listen to them streamed from their sites on your computer or tablet or you can download a podcast catcher app (iPhones come preloaded with the Podcast app).  Many are uploaded to Soundcloud (which is both a website and an app). Other podcast apps include Overcast, Stitcher, Anchor, Breaker, PodTail, Google Podcasts and Spotify. Once you’ve installed the apps, search by podcast title (or episode title) to find what you’re looking for. You can choose to subscribe or just listen to individual episodes (either via downloads or streaming) If you are having problems finding the podcasts on your podcast catcher of choice, please visit the podcast’s homepage to see if it is only available on certain platforms.

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A Short Research Guide to Egypt

The lobby of the American Research Center in Egypt (photo credit: N.A. Mansour)

At MESA 2019, Djodi Deutsch, Academic Programs Manager for the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE), participated in a discussion on doing research in Egypt today; she based this on years of working with ARCE fellows conducting dissertation research and other projects. She kindly shared this list of research sites in Egypt with us (and on social media!) to share with you. Note these are not archive reviews –we’ve hyperlinked the research sites that we do have reviews for– but we are working on bringing you Egypt-specific archive reviews, along with other content. Feel free to drop us a line at hazineblog@gmail.com if you want to write us a piece! For now, this guide should help you get a general sense of what is out there.

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Statue of a Peasant Woman in the Agricultural Museum Gardens (photo credit: Taylor Moore)

Obviously Dar al-Wathaiq (the National Archives) and Dar al-Kutub are still accessible. Dar al-Wathaiq requires a lengthy application process you can begin by visiting the location on the Corniche. Dar al-Kutub, both at the Corniche and Bab al-Khalq are running as usual: these repositories are good for rare books, manuscripts, and periodicals.

The Coptic Canadian History Project (CCHP) also has a list, written by Amy Fallas and Weston Bland, on archives in Egypt and the US. The CCHP is also working in collaboration with immigrants and have a growing archival collection with York University Libraries in Toronto.

Dar al-Kutub (Corniche Location) is on the right side of the image. The left side of the image is Zamalek, where the Majma al-Lugha al-‘Arabi can be found (photo credit: N.A. Mansour)

Here is the list itself, compiled by Djodi Deutsch

  • Al-Azhar University; al-Azhar Library
  • American University in Cairo
  • National Judicial Studies Center
  • Central Library (al-Sayyidah Zaynab)
  • Bibliotheca Alexandrina
  • Alexandria Municipal Library
  • Institute of Arabic Manuscripts
  • Majma al-Lugha al-‘Arabi
  • Institut français d’archéologie orientale (IFAO)
  • Nederlands-Vlaams Instituut in Cairo (NVIC)
  • American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE)
  • Coptic Museum and Patriarchate
  • St. Catherine’s Monastery Library
  • Dominican Institute for Oriental Studies (IDEO)
  • Franciscan Centre of Christian Oriental Studies
  • Cairo International Book Fair (every January/February, dates change yearly)
  • Suq al-Ezbekiyya
  • Egyptian Radio and Television Archive
  • Al Ahram
  • Akhbar al-Yawm Newspaper Archive
  • Ruz al Yusuf Foundation
  • Dar Al Hilal Newspaper Archive
  • Dār al-Karmah, Dār al-Tanwīr, and Dār al-Maḥrūsah (publishing houses)
  • Wekalet Behna
  • Egyptian Olympic Committee
  • Cimatheque Cairo – Alternative Film Center
  • Agricultural Museum
  • Dar al-Mahfuzat al-ʿUmumiyya 

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Online Archives, Digitized Collections and Resources for Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic(ate) Studies

By N.A. Mansour

We at Hazine love our lists. So hot off the heels of our visual resource guide and our regularly updated blog-list, we have a list of online resources to share with you all: this is where you can find primary sources online or resources to help you get at primary sources. An earlier incarnation of this list is here, written by Zachary Foster. We’re including links to digitized Islamic manuscripts, digitized periodicals, digitized books, oral history repositories, online syllabi and material history archives, all relevant to Middle East, North African, Islamicate world, and Islamic studies.  Note while many of these are open access, some are not. Standard rules apply: this is not a comprehensive list so tweet at us or email us and we’ll add things to our semi-annual updates to this list. 

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A Guide to Online Visual Sources in Middle East, North Africa, and Islamic Studies

Let’s face it: every publication is better with images. Whether it’s a presentation, a blog post, a book, or just a paper, images engage an audience instantly. The internet is flush with images from Islamic art, architecture, and society, but reliable sources (with credit information) are more difficult to track down. So we’ve done it for you! Here are some of the best sites for finding credited visual resources for Islamic, Middle Eastern and North African Studies. Feel free to suggest more in the comments and we’ll update the list! Note this list is specifically focused on images and visual resources, but not necessarily manuscripts (for a guide to online manuscript collections, look at Evyn Kropf’s list here).

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Blogs You Should Be Adding to Your Bookmarks

By N.A. Mansour

We recently tweeted out some of our favorite blogs to follow: we threw out a couple of names you probably know and some you might not have had the chance to follow. Then our followers (and some of the people we tagged) tweeted back at us some of their favorites (particular shout-outs to Rich Heffron, Hind Makki and M Lynx Qualey). Here it is, in list form, if you don’t follow us on Twitter. Please either comment bellow on your favorites, tweet at us, or email us at hazineblog@gmail.com and we’ll update the list as we go along!

(Updated October 2019)

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