Collection: Shop Middle Eastern

What is it like to live in or visit Saudi Arabia? What makes Saudi Arabia's culture unique? Explore the geography, traditions, and daily lives of Saudi Arabian people.

A BreakBeat Poets anthology of writings by Muslims who are women, queer, genderqueer, nonbinary, or trans.

Since its publication in 2000, hundreds of thousands of children all over the world have read and loved The Breadwinner, the fictional story of eleven-year-old Parvana living in Kabul under the terror of the Taliban. But what happened to Afghanistan's children after the fall of the Taliban in 2001? In 2011, Deborah Ellis went to Kabul to find out.

The twenty-six boys and girls featured in this book range in age from ten to seventeen, and they speak candidly about their lives now. They are still living in a country at war. Violence and oppression exist all around them. The situation for girls has improved, but it is still difficult and dangerous. And many children -- boys and girls -- are still supporting their families by selling items like pencils and matches on the street.

Yet these kids are weathering their lives with remarkable courage and hope, getting as much education and life experience and fun as they can.

All royalties from the sale of Kids of Kabul will go to Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan (www.cw4wafghan.ca), which administers Parvana's Fund, supporting schools, libraries and literacy programs for Afghan women and children.

Key Text Features
photographs
maps
glossary
introduction
historical context
additional information

Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6
Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.6
Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.6.9
Compare and contrast one author's presentation of events with that of another (e.g., a memoir written by and a biography on the same person).

With honesty and curiosity, British-born Omani-Zanzibari chef Dina Macki explores the unique foodscape of Oman, in the first Omani cookbook to be written by an Omani chef.

Bahari, meaning "ocean" in Swahili, is a culinary exploration of the rich flavors and history of Omani cuisine, a food culture shaped by boundless coastlines and complex maritime history, with origins and influences spanning Pakistan, Iran, India, the Swahili coast, and Portugal.

In this distinctive cookbook, Dina Macki travels across Oman and Zanzibar, unearthing regional delicacies and recreating the food of her heritage. With more than 100 recipes for meat, fish, vegetables, homemade breads and dips, desserts, and drinks, Macki invites us into her kitchen, showing us how to create exquisite Omani dishes at home. Tapping into the stories behind the recipes and ingredients, Macki brings a fresh perspective in nuanced essays on migration and identity, exploring how food connects us to our past and our communities.

Combining personal essays and contemporary twists on traditional recipes, Bahari takes us on a journey through the flavors of Oman, in a tale that is as fascinating as it is delicious.

Saudi Arabia is known for its oil, but readers go beyond the basics in this detailed guide to the history, people, and culture of one of the most powerful countries in the Middle East. Detailed chapters filled with full-color photographs focus on essential elements of life in Saudi Arabia--from its economy and government to its language, festivals, and food. Readers also discover the history of this nation and how that has influenced its present. Fact boxes and sidebars highlight additional information about this country, which is sometimes in the spotlight for controversial actions.

Palestine as Metaphor consists of a series of interviews with Mahmoud Darwish, which have never appeared in English before. The interviews are a wealth of information on the poet's personal life, his relationships, his numerous works, and his tragedy. They illuminate Darwish's conception of poetry as a supreme art that transcends time and place.

Several writers and journalists conducted the interviews, including a Lebanese poet, a Syrian literary critic, three Palestinian writers, and an Israeli journalist. Each encounter took place in a different city from Nicosia to London, Paris, and Amman.

These vivid dialogues unravel the threads of a rich life haunted by the loss of Palestine and illuminate the genius and the distress of a major world poet.

Counting and culture come together in this stunning companion to Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns.

From one sun to countless stars, this gentle introduction to numbers also celebrates the many diverse traditions of the Muslim world, encouraging readers young and old to reflect upon--and count--their many blessings. Like Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns and Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, this latest offering in the Concepts of the Muslim World series has stunning illustrations, rhyming read-aloud text, and informative back matter, and it is equally at home in the classroom or being read on a parent's lap.

HENA KHAN'S AWARD-WINNING BOOKS: Hena Khan's picture books have garnered numerous awards: Parents' Choice Recommended Seal, Booklist Top 10 Religion Book for Youth, and Chicago Public Library Best Book, among many others.

MUSLIM TALENT: Created by a Muslim Pakistani American author and a Muslim Pakistani British illustrator, this book reflects their shared experiences and vision.

NUMBERS & COUNTING: It's a perfect introduction to counting and numbers! Children will delight in counting the items in the illustrations on each spread along the with the satisfying rhyme of the text.

BACK MATTER: The back matter includes a comprehensive glossary and an author's note, making this a great classroom book!

Perfect for:

- Anyone looking for picture books to teach religious literacy and/or about Islam
- Muslim parents and grandparents looking for picture books that reflect their culture/faith
- Fans of previous books in the series, Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns and Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets
- Anyone looking for picture books to build early counting and number proficiency

Modern wars have shaped today's Iraq and have contributed greatly to the struggles of its people. Readers are taken past the headlines to learn the true story of what it's like to live in Iraq today--from the hardships to the happier moments celebrating with food and family. Focused chapters highlight the nation's history as the home of the Mesopotamian civilization--one of the oldest civilizations--as well as its government, geography, religious and ethnic groups, and artistic traditions. Colorful photographs enhance the reading experience, and sidebars, fact boxes, maps, and recipes provide more information.

The Muqaddimah (المقدمة), often translated as "Introduction" or "Prolegomenon," is the most important Islamic history of the premodern world. Written by the great fourteenth-century Arab scholar Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406), this monumental work established the foundations of several fields of knowledge, including the philosophy of history, sociology, ethnography, and economics.

The first complete English translation, by the eminent Islamicist and interpreter of Arabic literature Franz Rosenthal, was published in three volumes in 1958 as part of the Bollingen Series and received immediate acclaim in the United States and abroad.

Celebrate the beauty and diversity of life in the Arab diaspora throughout the year.

Wrapping grape leaves, playing doumbek, drawing henna tattoos,
we're Arab, Arab, Arab, the whole year through!

Yallah! From January to December, join some busy kids as they partake in traditions old and new. There's so much to do, whether it's learning to write Arabic or looking at hijab fashion sites while planning costumes for a local comic convention. With details as vivid as the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle perfume (made to remind Mom of Morocco), children bond with friends, honor tradition, and spend loving time with family. Accompanied by buoyant and charming illustrations, this portrait of Arab life and childhood zeal is sure to bring joy all year round. Back matter includes an extensive glossary and notes to enrich the experience for readers of any culture.

A lyrical and heartwarming celebration of a mother's love for her children by the award-winning author of Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns.

In this moving picture book, author Hena Khan shares her wishes for her children: "Inshallah you find wonder in birds as they fly. Inshallah you are loved, like the moon loves the sky." With vibrant illustrations and prose inspired by the Quran, this charming picture book is a heartfelt and universal celebration of a parent's unconditional love.

- A reassuring bedtime read-aloud for mothers and their children.
- A perfect book for sharing Muslim family traditions and for families teaching diversity and religious acceptance.
- Hena Khan's books have been widely acclaimed, winning awards and honors from the ALA, Parent's Choice, and many others.

For families who have read and loved Under My Hijab, Yo Soy Muslim, and Mommy's Khimar.

A sweet and lovely bedtime book to help let children know they are loved and precious.

- Bedtime books for ages 3-5
- Mother's Day gift
- Islamic children's books

Hena Khan is the author of Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets, Night of the Moon, and many other books for children. She lives in Rockville, Maryland.
Saffa Khan is an illustrator and printmaker born in Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan, and living in Glasgow, Scotland.

Born Jalal ad-Din Mohammad Balkhi in Persia early in the thirteenth century, the poet known as Rumi (named after the city where he lived) composed works of mysticism and desire that inspired countless people in his own time and throughout the centuries. His poems expressed the deepest longings of the human heart for its beloved, for that transcendent intimacy which is the source of the divine.

This slender, beautiful volume consists of new translations by Farsi scholar Fereydoun Kia, edited by Deepak Chopra to evoke the rich mood and music of Rumi's love poems. Exalted yearning, ravishing ecstasy, and consuming desire emerge from these poems as powerfully today as they did on their creation more than 700 years ago.

The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt uniquely covers 700,000 years of ancient Egypt, from c. 700,000 BC to AD 311. Following the story from the Egyptians' prehistoric origins to their conquest by the Persians, Greeks, and Romans, this book resurrects a fascinating society replete with remarkable historical information. It investigates such subjects as the changing nature of life and death in the Nile valley to some of the earliest masterpieces of art, architecture, and literature in the ancient world. The authors--an international team of experts working at the cutting edge of their particular fields--outline the principal sequence of political events, including detailed examinations of the three so-called 'intermediate periods' which were previously regarded as 'dark ages' and are only now beginning to be better understood. They also examine cultural and social patterns, including stylistic developments in art and literature. Addressing the issues surrounding this distinctive culture, vividly relating the rise and fall of ruling dynasties, exploring colorful personalities, and uncovering surprising facts, The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt is certain to enrich our understanding of this endlessly intriguing civilization.
"Brimming with...intriguing facts...also provides a first-rate overview of le progrès Egyptien--from the period when Homo erectus first stalked the land right up to Octavian's triumphant entry into Egypt in 30 BC."--The Times (London) (on the previous edition)

In this new novel by Syria's most prominent writer of the National Book Award Finalist Planet of Clay, a wounded nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian Army remembers his life lived in the traditional Alawite way.

"The potent latest from Yazbek (Planet of Clay) weighs the consequences of the Syrian civil war after a 19-year-old soldier, Ali, survives his patrol station's 2013 bombing in the Lattakia mountains.This slim novel packs a punch." -Publishers Weekly

Ali, a nineteen-year-old soldier in the Syrian army, lies on the ground beneath a tree. He sees a body being lowered into a hole--is this his funeral? There was that sudden explosion, wasn't there ... While trying to understand the extend of the damage, Ali works his way closer to the tree. His ultimate desire is to fly up to one of its branches, to safety. Through rich vignettes of Ali's memories, we uncover the hardships of his traditional Syrian Alawite village, but also the richness and beauty of its cultural and religious heritage. Yazbek here explores the secrets of the Alawite faith and its relationship to nature and the elements in a tight poetic novel dense with life and hope and love.

There was once a woman who had a little pot for a child. Tunjur! Tunjur! Tunjur! That was the sound the pot made as it rolled everywhere. Unfortunately the pot wasn't old enough to know the difference between right and wrong. That naughty pot ran off with things that did not belong to her until she learned her lesson...the hard way! In this retelling of a Palestinian folktale, children will discover that there are consequences for taking things that don't belong to them.

*Finalist for the 2017 PEN Open Book Award*
*Finalist for the 2016 National Book Award*

Solmaz Sharif's astonishing first book, Look, asks us to see the ongoing costs of war as the unbearable loss of human lives and also the insidious abuses against our everyday speech. In this virtuosic array of poems, lists, shards, and sequences, Sharif assembles her family's and her own fragmented narratives in the aftermath of warfare. Those repercussions echo into the present day, in the grief for those killed in America's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the discrimination endured at the checkpoints of daily encounter.

At the same time, these poems point to the ways violence is conducted against our language. Throughout this collection are words and phrases lifted from the Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms; in their seamless inclusion, Sharif exposes the devastating euphemisms deployed to sterilize the language, control its effects, and sway our collective resolve. But Sharif refuses to accept this terminology as given, and instead turns it back on its perpetrators. "Let it matter what we call a thing," she writes. "Let me look at you."

Daily I sit
with the language
they've made

of our language

to NEUTRALIZE
the CAPABILITY of LOW DOLLAR VALUE ITEMs
like you.

You are what is referred to as
a "CASUALTY."

--from "Personal Effects"