When you decide to learn Arabic language skills, you’re deciding to join the ranks of people who share a language and indeed a culture and identity; however, more importantly, you’re sharing a language with the people of from the Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and North Africa who have surely left their footprints on the world’s stage in areas from science to politics...
Read More
Quick! When you think about traveling to the Middle East, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Traveling through Arabian deserts on camelback? Climbing the pyramids in Egypt? Andre Agassi and Roger Federer playing tennis some 1,053 feet in the air on the helipad of one of the tallest hotels in the world? Okay that last one might be a stretch, but here’s the...
Read More
Located between the Levantine and Arabian areas of the Middle East, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is bordered by no less than four other Arabic speaking countries: Syria to the north, Iraq along its northeastern panhandle, Saudi Arabia to the east and southeast, the Gulf of Aqaba, Jordan's only outlet to the sea, is to the south and Palestine to the west. At 96,188 sq....
Read More
Sports have been around as long as the Middle East has been around. In fact, archaeologists have found wall carvings that depict wrestling scenes from the time of pharaohs. Arab sheikhs have flown their falcons across Arabian skies for hundreds of years while at the same time, Bedouins have raced their Arabian steeds across the desert sands. In the UAE, the still race their camels,...
Read More
As you travel southeast out of Morocco’s Atlas mountains, you’ll find the climate getting very hot and dry. Looking at a Morocco map, you’ll understand why. It’s because this is where the deserts of Morocco begin. Quiet and scarcely populated, the desert seems to go on forever here. Set apart from the kingdom’s coastal cities by the Atlas Mountain range, the Moroccan deserts are vastly different...
Read More
Finding people playing card games in the Arab world these days is as ubiquitous as finding falafel stands; in other words, they’re everywhere. Arabs adopted their love of playing cards from the Chinese who are believed to have invented them around the Tang Dynasty in the 9th century A.D. when the daughter of Emperor Yizong of Tang, Princess Tongchang, was seen playing the "leaf game" in 868...
Read More
In the first part of our article on Arabic music and Arab instruments, we briefly discussed Arabic musical history and theory and how it evolved. In this, the second part of the article, we will continue our talk by discussing the Arabic music instruments that give Arab music such a unique sound. Nearly 100 years after the death of the philosopher and Arab musical theorist Abu...
Read More
Every culture around the world has its own form of music that is enjoyed by all ages of that culture and the Arab culture is no different. As in other cultures, Arabic music unifies the people living the Arabic speaking countries of the Middle East and has been used throughout history for special occasions and sometimes simply for the enjoyment that it brings to its...
Read More
In the United States in 2018, culinary experts from all over America were hyping Moroccan food as the next “up-and-coming cuisine” with four out of 10 consumers interested in the kingdom’s savory dishes. However, what Western chefs were touting as the latest fad in food was really nothing new to the people of Morocco who had already been “trending” the blend of irresistible flavors and...
Read More
If you were to ask for zarb’s definition, we’d have to describe it as the ancient, traditional, and probably most dramatic, Bedouin style of cooking meat, rice or chicken by burying it in an underground oven of hot coals beneath the desert sands in such a way that it cooks the meat so tender, it literally falls right off the bones. If you’ve ever been...
Read More