@Maqitzara The illustrators really went for the most Orientalist imagery possible.
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CelestialObserver
503 posts
@SubDeaconDaniel @FischerQui74958 What about the Church of the East? Similar Syriac heritage and rootedness in the region.
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@FischerQui74958 My Abyssinian brothers use the Alexandrian rite liturgically, however, in spiritual emphasis and devotions, they are the closest to us from the churches in communion
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Syriac Orthodoxy is the most Semitic form of Christianity, under the Church of Antioch, where the earliest followers of Jesus were first called Christians, preserving the ancient rite of Jerusalem. We still pray in Aramaic
Rabbi Brian Samuel@rabbriansamuel
I'm Jewish. After careful study of the scriptures, I am convinced that Jesus is the Messiah, son of the living God.
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@shabashewitz How many of them even live in Kiryat Arba?
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Random Israeli towns can be weirdly diverse. Kiryat Arba in the West Bank has a few hundred Bnei Menashe residents i.e. Tibeto-Burman-speaking Jews from India and Myanmar. I’ve been a few times as I’ve got friends in the community. Here’s Ana and me at their spring festival.
Taja@ChineseInfantry
This place can’t be real
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@baibar89 @shabashewitz Kaifeng Jews have actual Israelite ancestry (some haplogroups even trace back to Bukharian and Mesopotamian Jews), unlike the Bnei Menashe who emerged from modern spiritual movements and originate solely with local peoples.
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@shabashewitz Like Kaifeng Jews they are not Jewish according to the canon. They're the recently (self-)discovered "lost tribes of Israel", which are increasing by the day. And hour.
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@IsraeliLibPriv @krazgreinetz What is the reason the Jezreel Valley is voting for Yesh Atid?
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@krazgreinetz Proud to be a resident of the Jezreel valley, seemingly the largest-by-area yellow district in this map
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Here is the 2022 Israeli Election mapped by precinct. Netanyahu's coalition returned to power, dominating in mid-sized cities, middle class suburbs, religious areas, and settlements. Probably the most work I've ever put into a map.
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@bege_mote @levantophile I think he fails to consider the fact that Western accounts such as ethnographies and histories even from the 1800s are vital to understanding past cultures, even if biased. Many such accounts bore witness to extinct cultures and religions and thus sometimes vital to knowledge.
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I was a young pup when I first read Orientalism and I still remember to this day aggressively highlighting his line on the book’s 6th or 7th page where he damns the whole field of the study of the Middle East in the West as a discursive exercise in imperialism and colonialism. Something just didn’t sit right with me with someone who made such a sweeping statement
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I am struck, and pleasantly amused, by the flawless, highly ornate Arabic prose of this late 19th-century Cambridge Persianist, who was evidently an accomplished Arabist as well.
Incidentally, this is one reason I find Edward Said’s Orientalism overly dismissive and uncharitable toward Western scholars. Men like Browne devoted an extraordinary effort to mastering a difficult language and culture, and that kind of devotion is hard to see as anything other than a labor of love, especially when his Arabic is so poetic and refined. (I must admit, I am envious!)
Ironically, Arabists like Browne likely possessed a far more advanced command of Arabic than Said ever did.
Fitzroy Morrissey@fitzmorrissey
I love this: the Cambridge Persianist Edward Granville Browne writing to Ignaz Goldziher in Arabic rhymed prose (sajʿ). Let’s bring this back among Arabist colleagues!
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@History__Speaks @mo_shawki2 Modern Shi’ism also possesses more of an esoteric tilt, which may appeal to many people spiritually.
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@mo_shawki2 I like the vibes and ideological impulses and raves.
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If I were religious I'd be Christian (again). But if I were Muslim I'd be Shiite not a close call.
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@Maqitzara I mean the samples Sahara component is elevated
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@Sobalaan @CigogneEveillee Also why would Daraa be granted to a Druze state? It is overwhelmingly Sunni Arab and has ~1m people, almost 3x as large as Suwayda’s population.
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The 9th Crusade should establish a wall of non-Muhammedan nations against the Islamic invasion.
The Alewite Nation of Ugarit, Gnosticism.
The Maronite Nation of Lebanon, Catholicism.
The Druze Nation of Bashan, Hermon and Lebanon, Druzism.
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@Maqitzara Samaritans probably have the highest Israelite ancestry of any living group, followed closely by some Palestinian Christians, Nablus area Muslims with endogamous Samaritan ancestry, and Musta’arabi Syrian Jews who have a Lebanese-like profile.
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@Maqitzara Palestinian Christians are a mixture of Byzantine-era inhabitants of Palestine (probably some of Jewish or Samaritan ancestry) and some migrations from east of the Jordan and to a lesser extent north from Lebanon and Syria.
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Acting like they are a totally separate cluster lol
Aryāṃśa@arya_amsha
The Israelite Samaritans are the direct continuous living descendants of the Ancient Jews who never left Israel over 3000 years. They are genetically identical to Bronze Age Israel. The Palestinian Muslims (and Christians) are mixed with Arabs and Normans, and are not natives.
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@punicist Do you think the pro-Hezbollah contingent among Shias may ignite hatred of Shias by wider Lebanese society and/or potentially spark a civil war?
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Lebanese Shias have one of the most tragic histories in the Middle East.
In 1305, the Sunni Mamluks sent a massive army into Keserwan in Mount Lebanon, expelling or massacring the Shia and Alawite population there and leaving the mountain largely depopulated. Maronites gradually filled the vacuum. The Khazen family then quietly bought out the remaining Shia landholders, and the few who stayed eventually converted to Maronite Christianity (interesting factoid: that is why you find Maronites today having family names like "Husseiny")
In 1780, the Ottoman governor of Bosnian origin, Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar ("The Butcher"), marched north from Acre into Jabal Amil, the mostly Shia mountainous region of South Lebanon. He killed the leading Shia chief Nasif al-Nassar, looted and burned religious sites, and had the Shia scholars' libraries carted off to bonfires in Acre. The expulsion of the religious class drove many Shia Lebanese ulama into exile as far as Iran, Afghanistan, and India. Al-Jazzar also dismantled the local cotton economy there which ended up compounding the devastation. Before that campaign, South Lebanon used to export dyed cotton cloth to Europe.
During the 18th century, Shia communities were further pushed out of Jezzine and the hills above Sidon by the expanding power of Druze lords.
When modern Lebanon was created, the Shia were its underclass, which is the cumulative result of centuries of dispossession. South Lebanon then bore the brunt of Palestinian organizations and their destabilizing presence in the South (the SLA fighting force was around 50% Shia if not more). Accumulated grievances due to the constant depredations of the Israeli occupiers in the South made the entire community turn militantly anti-Israel (although some refused Israel's presence from the beginning, those who didn't lay down their arms in Khalde beach, as Fisk puts it, and who were the seeds of Hezbollah). Many became tied to the Islamic Revolution and Velayat-e faqih. The IRGC went to Lebanon and organized the emergence of Hezbollah, an embodiment of the Islamic Revolution and an instrument for carrying it beyond Iran's borders.
And now they are facing yet another wave of displacement. The price of having bound their fate to Iran. What a tragedy.
Drop Site@DropSiteNews
⚡️JUST IN: Israel is preparing a major ground invasion of southern Lebanon, aiming to seize all territory south of the Litani River and dismantle Hezbollah infrastructure, U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios. Troops and reserves are being reinforced on the border ahead of the operation, which could become Israel’s largest invasion of Lebanon since 2006.
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@AussieEgyptian @_reborninchrist I suppose the first wave was Aramaic speaking then other waves brought Arabic?
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The rare dialect spoken by the Maronite community in Cyprus 🇨🇾🇱🇧✝️
Arabic with Aramaic & Cypriot Greek influence
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@CaucasusSpark What makes you think Juan Cole as a whole is bad?
He certainly is biased towards promoting a progressive interpretation of Islam, however his actual quality of work is decent.
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@pharyngealschwa Another thing, was the Egyptian Karaite dialect extremely similar to the Karaite dialect of Hīt due to the fact they largely originated in Iraq?
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@ClstlObserver No, not here. Actual Hebrew loans in used by average speakers in everyday BJA are not so numerous (I sometimes post some main ones). However, there are more that are used in specific circumstances. There are also more regular “Jewish” ideas and influences throughout the dialect
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Baghdadi Judeo-Arabic
bǝla zaḥma בִּלַא זַחְמַה بلا زحمة
‘If you don’t mind…’ etc
bǝla zaḥma, tǝqdaġ ᵊtǧīb-l-i l-glāṣ māl-i?
If you don’t mind, could you bring me my cup?
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@Maqitzara If the man on the left bonesmashed, he could have looksmaxxed to the man on the right in facial structure
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