Jonas Hanway was the first person in Britain with an umbrella – and he got the idea whilst trading around the Caspian Sea. Although the BBC, in today’s review of the history and the future of the umbrella, are correct that the Egyptians and the Chinese were early adopters of the parasol / umbrella, it’s …
It seems only to be the King who gets to feast up in the tree-house in this gorgeous folio from a Khamsa of Amir Khusrau in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Wouldn’t that make conversation difficult, even there is a great view of the dancing? Maybe the courtiers down below are struggling with the ta’arof: …
Orientalist display techniques continued even into the famous 1910 exhibition in Munich – which expressly aimed to avoid having an Arabian Nights-style impression “somehow arousing the impression that [the exhibition halls] were buildings, halls, chambers of the Orient” . The exhibition started in an elegant foyer with pointed arches and mashrabiya. This was just a prelude to …
One of the very best Persian carpets ever woven is the Emperor Carpet – a gift from Czar Peter the Great, which ornamented the Summer Palace of the Hapsburgs. Click above to see the fascinating 8-minute video from the Met chronicling its recent three year restoration process – including the removal of 700 patches. And click and …
In 1867, at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, the Turkish ‘quarter’ was designed by the Frenchman Léon Parvillée. It included a mosque (representing the religious sphere), the residential Pavilion du Bosphore (showing the homefront) , and a bath (for social and cultural ritual) —all laid out around an open space with a fountain (for the …
It’s the Ashura day of mourning today. Last year, I wrote about Abu’l Fazl, and how he tried to bring water back to Hossein and his thirsty five-year old daughter. This year, I was looking out for what to send you all and found this moving video. It’s less than 3 minutes and if you’ve …
Nafise Motlaq has explored stereotypes about men and women in Iran by photographing fathers and daughters from a range of social classes: “There are a lot of successful Iranian women in universities, business, art, science, and industry and we should understand most of them have very supporting fathers and male friends in their life.” Here …
Here’s a 2-minute video of the last Shah pronouncing on the intelligence of women. He explained that: “there are cases .. some exceptions”. Since he had made his wife his Regent, he was asked by the female interviewer – perhaps one of those rare exceptions – whether he thought she was up to governing the country. …
On 24 Jan 2014 at 6.30 am, a car bomb exploded outside the Cairo Islamic Art Museum – the largest such museum in the world. The museum holds 100,000 objects including the oldest known example of Kufic script, on a tombstone dated AH.31; a Quran dated AH.203; two of the 12 gold dinars which are …
The best cookbook of 2014 is .. Persiana, by Sabrina Ghayour. Sabrina was born in Tehran (check out the classic Tehran glasses on big hair in her Twitter pic), and she uses her Persian heritage to create some prize-winning – and not-as-difficult-and-time-consuming as you might think – recipes with a superscrumptious Persian twist. Her website …