The story of chess gets lost in the depths of centuries and in the far ends of Asia. Thousands of years ago, the game transcended the boundaries of language, religion, cultures, nationalities and classes, and managed to conquer the whole world.  15th-16th century manuscript of Divan-e Shamse Tabrizi depicting Shamse Tabrizi playing chess with a...Read More

“There is a certain divergence between the popular image of Islam, as the religion that emanated from the desert and carried its ethos, and the notion of the garden: lush, green, shaded, moist, and fragrant, among other pleasant qualities that are all antithetical to the desert environment. But it seems that precisely because Islam came...Read More

The Lighthouse of Alexandria is one of the classic “Seven Wonders of the Ancient World”. It was still a great tourist attraction well into the medieval period, and was visited by many travellers to the city that were impressed by its magnitude. The lighthouse was constructed in the 3rd century BC. “During the reigns of...Read More

Bruce Clark, Twice a stranger: How mass expulsion forged modern Greece and Turkey (Granta Books, London 2006) My old friend Bruce Clark is a British journalist who writes regularly for The Economist. He frequently visits Greece and has even been received into the Greek Orthodox Church. I first encountered him in person in the village...Read More

Throughout history, trade routes played a central role in the transfer of goods and exchange of ideas between different parts of the world. The historic Silk Roads, which were a network of trade routes across land and sea that connected the lands from China across Asia to the Meditteranean, connected civilisations and peoples from different...Read More

The heyday of Baghdad was 1,200 years ago when it was the thriving capital of the Muslim civilisation. For about 500 years the city boasted the cream of intellectuals and culture, a reputation gained during the reigns of some of its most famous Caliphs (Al-Rashid, Al-Ma’mun, Al-Mu’tadhid and Al-Muktafi). As one of the world’s biggest...Read More

Al-Jahiz lived, during one of the most exciting times of intellectual history – the period of the transmission of Greek science to the Arabs and the development of Arabic prose literature -and was intimately involved in both. Not much is known about al-Jahiz’s early life, but his family was very poor. Born early in February...Read More

Media outlets around the world have grown increasingly indifferent to the brutality of the ongoing war in Syria, numbed by more than four years of senseless killing and destruction in that cursed country. But a recent attack finally touched a raw nerve among global literati, for the victim is someone with whom they can identify....Read More

Mohammed Ali, the founder of the dynasty which ruled Egypt until 1952, and a major political figure of his time, was born in Kavala in 1769. He was involved in the tobacco trade and promoted in the army. He was a brave and ambitious man, who assumed a leading role in developments in Egypt upon...Read More