Primary Sources

Constantinople and the Bosphorus

Translated from the French and annotated by G. Rex Smith and Jonathan M. G. Smith

Pierre Loti with Samuel Viaud – 2024-03

First English translations of Pierre Loti’s ‘Suprêmes Visions d’Orient’ and ‘Constantinople. Fin de siecle’. Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was born Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud into a Protestant family in Rochefort in Saintonge, South-West France (now Charente Maritime). He was an officer of the French Navy and a prolific author of considerable note in 19th-/early-20th-century France, publishing many novels and numerous accounts of his travels around the world. He was a member of the French Academy. Apart from his literary talents, ...
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The Trucial Coast Political Reports 1963-1966

From Pearls to Oil - at Last. With an Index for vols 1-5

David Heard – 2024-02

The Trucial Coast Political Reports are a unique record of events, commented on by a small group of British men living in Sharjah and Dubai. This was in the years leading up to the commencement of oil exports from the desert of Abu Dhabi. These men regularly met to discuss and negotiate with the Rulers of the Trucial States - sometimes in a state of mutual incomprehension - the conditions under which the Company (Petroleum Development/ Trucial Coast or PD/TC) would operate in their various territories. Boundaries and fron...
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From Pearls to Oil

How the Oil Industry Came to the United Arab Emirates

David Heard – 2024-02

From Pearls to Oil is a testament of the challenges contended by extraordinary men who initiated the search for oil in the United Arab Emirates in the years between the two World Wars. This book features never-before-published copies of letters, notes and reports complementing the research, which stems from the archives of the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company (ADPC) and other literature recorded by British Government officials. With rare photographs and maps alongside the author's in-depth narrative, this book is a...
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History of the Oil Industry in the Gulf and the People Who Made it Happen, 1934-1966

Based on Original Documents of Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company (Set of 5 Books in 6 Volumes, with Index)

David Heard – 2024-02

These volumes are a testament of the challenges contended by extraordinary men who initiated the search for oil in the United Arab Emirates in the years between the two World Wars. This set of a total of five books in six volumes features never-before-published copies of letters, notes and reports complementing the research, which stems from the archives of the Abu Dhabi Petroleum Company (ADPC) and other literature recorded by British Government officials. With rare photographs and maps alongside the author's ...
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The Holy Land: Travels Through Galilee to Damascus and Baalbek.

And the Green Mosque of Bursa

Pierre Loti – 2022

First English translation of ‘La Galilée’, an account of Pierre Loti’s travels in the Holy Land from Jerusalem to Beirut, via Damascus and many other interesting places, in 1894. Pierre Loti (1850-1923) was born Louis-Marie-Julien Viaud into a Protestant family in Rochefort in Saintonge, South-West France (now Charente Maritime). He was an officer of the French Navy and a prolific author of considerable note in 19th-/early-20th-century France, publishing many novels and numerous accounts of his travels around the world. H...
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The Way to Isfahan and Passing through Muscat

An Account of a Trip to Persia and Oman in 1900

Pierre Loti – 2021

From 17 April, 1900, to 6 June of that year, Pierre Loti travelled in a private capacity from Bushire on the Persian Gulf, northwards through Shiraz, Persepolis, Isfahan and Tehran, before returning via the Caspian Sea to Europe. It is the personal day-by-day account of his journey, the hardships of the mountainous terrain and the empty desert. Loti excels in his descriptions of the world around him: the sky, the mountains, the fertile plains, the deserted desert. His descriptions of the people he meets, their dress and mann...
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The Trucial Coast Political Reports 1958-1963

The Slow Progress from Pearls to Oil

David Heard – 2021

The Trucial Coast Diaries 1948-1957

On the Way from Pearls to Oil in the Trucial States of the Gulf

David Heard – 2020

The Trucial Coast Diaries are the secret reports written in Dubai by the Representatives of the London based group of oil companies, the Iraq Petroleum Company, known on the Trucial Coast as Petroleum Development (Trucial Coast), PD(TC). These men, the authors, were in a unique position to observe the social, economic and political environment of the people then living in the present day United Arab Emirates, before oil revenues led to a dramatic transformation from intense poverty to the great wealth which now permeates eve...
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Desert Dispute: the Diplomacy of Boundary-Making in South-Eastern Arabia

Volume 3

J. B. Kelly – 2019

This is the third and final volume of a previously unpublished study by the foremost authority on the subject. The book is based on thorough research in the relevant archives and direct experience of the dispute. As such it will be the standard reference work on this question for all who have an interest in the Gulf Arab states, their territorial origins and its effects on their increasing role in regional and world affairs. The struggle to delineate the boundaries of south-eastern Arabia can claim to be one of the longest r...
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Desert Dispute: the Diplomacy of Boundary-Making in South-Eastern Arabia

Set, Volumes 1-3

J. B. Kelly – 2019

This new and previously unpublished study, by the foremost authority on the subject, is an exhaustive one, based on thorough research in the relevant archives and direct experience of the dispute. As such it will be the standard reference work on this question for all who have an interest in the Gulf Arab states, their territorial origins and its effects on their increasing role in regional and world affairs. The struggle to delineate the boundaries of south-eastern Arabia can claim to be one of the longest running diplomati...
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Occidentalism, Conspiracy and Taboo. Collected Essays on Islam and Politics

Volume 4

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2019

Sadik J. Al-Azm was one of the foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, Secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. This fourth collection of his essays includes: - Syria in Revolt (2014) - Experience or “Regime of Truth”? About Translation, Arabic and the Postmodern (2014) - Orientalism of the Worst Kind (2015) - The Shari‘a from a Secular Perspective (2015) - Crossing Borders: Orientalism, lslamism and Postmoder...
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The Struggle for the Meaning of Islam. Collected Essays on Islam and Politics.

Set, Volumes 1-4

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2019

Sadik Jalal Al-Azm was an internationally respected scholar and political commentator who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on issues surrounding Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. He was recognised as a principled defender of human rights and has been the main ethical reference for the Syrian revolution. Al-Azm was educated at the American University Beirut, and at Yale in modern European philosophy and has taught at Damascus, Harvard, Pri...
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Oil Men, Territorial Ambitions and Political Agents. From Pearls to Oil in the Trucial States of the Gulf

Set, Volumes 1-2

David Heard – 2019

“Oil Men“ represents a unique resource for the student of the challenges, both physical and political, of oil prospecting in a region with no infrastructure and no formal boundaries between local power bases. The book charts the slow and unexpected transformation of the emirates from poverty to undreamed-of wealth. Detailed coverage with extensive access to primary sources describes the frequently tortuous negotiations between oil companies, sheikhs and regional political agents, all of whom sought to protect their different...
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Reform of Islam:

Forty Theses for an Islamic Ethics in the 21st Century

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi – 2019

Abdel-Hakim Ourghi’s Reform of Islam is an open indictment of prevailing conservative Islam which insists on the absolute subjugation of the body and mind of all Muslims. The author seeks a humanist understanding of Islam and aims to interpret Islam in today’s terms. He argues against the historical alienation and transfiguration that still shape the collective consciousness of Muslims in the 21st century. Using critical analysis and logic, the author aims to reveal the true core of Islam. Ourghi’s 40 Theses include: - The ...
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Islam and Humanity: Consequences of a Contemporary Reading

First Authorized English Translation of Al-Islam wa-l-Insan. With a foreword by Dale F. Eickelman

Muhammad Shahrour – 2017

„EXPLAIN THE QUR’AN BY THE QUR’AN“ Shahrour’s reading of the Qur’an is “modern” in that he directly engages the reader. He argues that we must act as if “the Prophet just died and informed us of this book” and interpret his message anew. The reader must actively interpret the meaning of the Qur’an. The Prophet Muhammad conveyed the last of God’s revelations; now, writes Shahrour, humankind is on its own to perfect itself and adapt to modern conditions. His first book as an Islamic thinker "Al-Islam wa-l-Kitab" was ...
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Pouring Water on Time: A Bilingual Topical Anthology of Classical Arabic Poetry

with a foreword by Sadik J. Al-Azm

Mansour, Ajami – 2016

This bilingual anthology presents the best of Arabic classical poetry's musings over the many faceted states of the human condition, among them love, generosity, life, time, youth, beauty, ecstasy, longing, wine, death and plenty more. Mansour Ajami's selection of topical verses and poems is guided by what was deemed best in its genre by the consensus of the great classical Arab literary critics and theoreticians. „For Mansour Ajami, Arabic poetry is that Midas touch which transmutes the most common-place words, th...
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On Fundamentalisms: Collected Essays on Islam and Politics

Volume 1, with a Foreword by Stefan Wild

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2014

Sadik Al-Azm was one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. On Fundamentalisms includes essays on: - Islamic Fundamentalism Reconsidered - Islam and the Science-Religion Debates in Modern Times - The Struggle for the Meaning of Islam - What is Islamism? - The Takfir Syllogism...
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Islam – Submission and Disobedience

Collected Essays on Islam and Politics Vol. 2

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2014

Sadik Al-Azm was one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. Islam – Submission and Disobedience includes essays on: - The Importance of Being Earnest About Salman Rushdie - Is the Fatwa a Fatwa? - The Tragedy of Satan - Satanic Verses Post Festum: The Global, the Local, the Literary - Universalizing from Particulars...
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Is Islam Secularizable? Challenging Political and Religious Taboos

Collected Essays on Islam and Politics Vol. 3

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2014

Sadik Al-Azm was one of today's foremost Arab public intellectuals, who offered innovative, often controversial challenges to conventional narratives on Islam and the West, secularism, Orientalism, and the Israel-Palestine issue. Is Islam Secularizable? includes essays on: - Civil Society and the Arab Spring - Orientalism and Conspiracy - Ground Zero Revisited, - Islam and Secular Humanism - Trends in Arab Thought - Palestinian Zionism - Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse...
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Critique of Religious Thought. First English Translation of naqd al-fikr ad-dini

with a new introduction by the author

Sadik J. Al-Azm – 2014

Sadik al-Azm's Critique of Religious Thought set off one of the the great Arab intellectual uproars of the twentieth century, leading to the author's imprisonment and trial for mocking religion and inciting sectarian conflict. As in his earlier Self-Criticism after the Defeat, Al-Azm takes on the taboos of the age and their sponsors: the religious elites. In this book he attempts to awaken the Arab mind from its dogmatic slumber, leading it out of the Middle Ages and into a modern world characterized by science and...
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