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Zoroastrians in Iran

In Decline

Next to Judaism, Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions and it was the state religion in the Persian Empire long before the Muslim conquest. Today, however, the faith ekes out a shadowy existence. Arian Fariborz reports
F.M. Esfandiary: "Identity Card"

A Persian Parable of Losing One's Homeland

Iranian writer F.M. Esfandiary was born in 1930 in Brussels. Although his novel "Identity Card" was published over 40 years ago, this story of the absurdities of bureaucracy and a desperate search for identity is a timeless work of literature with universal pertinence. A review by Volker Kaminski
Ilija Trojanow on F.M. Esfandiary

Searching for Identity in Iran's Labyrinthine Bureaucracy

F.M. Esfandiary's novel "Identity Card" was published in the mid-1960s. A dissection of the inhuman absurdities of the Iranian bureaucratic system, it is a book that has lost nothing of its relevance under the mullahs, as Ilija Trojanow, translator of the newly published German translation, tells Nimet Seker
From Lemberg to Pakistan

The Yiddish Jokes of Mohammad Asad

Leopold Weiss, the grandson of a rabbi, later also known as Muhammad Asad, became ideologically involved in the founding of the new state of Pakistan. Weiss also translated the Koran into English. A portrait by Joseph Hanimann
Stefan Weidner's "Fez"

Meandering Reflections

Following the success of his "Mohammedan Temptations," prominent translator and publisher of Arab literature Stefan Weidner has now brought out a second prose volume with a literary account of a trip to Morocco. A review by Lewis Gropp
Interview with Kader Abdolah

"The Ayatollahs Want To Be Bombed"

Kader Abdolah's novel "The House of the Mosque" describes the impact of Islamic fundamentalism on the daily life of a tradition-conscious family. Ilja Braun spoke with the author about the novel, the situation in Iran and his status as an exile writer
Arab Satellite Media

Al-Jazeera – The Enigma from Qatar

On 1 November 1996 the Arab news network al-Jazeera started broadcasting from Qatar. Its bold news coverage sent shockwaves through the Arab world, and soon became the target of stinging criticism from both Western and Arab governments. By Larissa Bender
Amr Khaled

"I Want to Move Arabic Youth!"

The Egyptian-born preacher Amr Khaled motivates and galvanises Arabic youth. One of his theses is that Muslims who live in Western societies must also respect the values of those societies. Mona Naggar reports
Adonis on Euro-Mediterranean Dialogue

Humanity Takes Priority

In his essay, the acclaimed Syrian-Lebanese intellectual Adonis criticises the monotheist religions' dogmatism and uncompromising claim to truth, blaming them for blocking constructive Euro-Mediterranean dialogue to this day
Edward Said's "Orientalism" in Arab Discourse

Instrumentalised on All Sides

Edward Said published his seminal work 'Orientalism' thirty years ago. For western academics, the book emerged as the manifesto of theoretical decolonisation – but how was his intellectual legacy received in the Arab world? Markus Schmitz has the answers