Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise PDF Author: Khaled al-Berry
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
ISBN: 1617970514
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 271

Book Description
In 1986, when this autobiography opens, the author is a typical fourteen-year-old boy in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Attracted at first by the image of a radical Islamist group as "strong Muslims," his involvement develops until he finds himself deeply committed to its beliefs and implicated in its activities. This ends when, as he leaves the university following a demonstration, he is arrested. Prison, a return to life on the outside, and attending Cairo University all lead to Khaled al-Berry's eventual alienation from radical Islam. This book opens a window onto the mind of an extremist who turns out to be disarmingly like many other clever adolescents, and bears witness to a history with whose reverberations we continue to live. It also serves as an intelligent and critical guide for the reader to the movement's unfamiliar debates and preoccupations, motives and intentions. Fluently written, intellectually gripping, exciting, and often funny, Life Is More Beautiful than Paradise provides a vital key to the understanding of a world that is both a source of fear and a magnet of curiosity for the west.

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise PDF Author: Khālid Birrī
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9774162943
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
The author describes how he became drawn to a radical Islamic group as a teenager, his commitment to the group's beliefs and activities, his arrest and time in prison, and his eventual rejection of radical Islam.

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise PDF Author: Khālid Birrī
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781906598464
Category : Islamic fundamentalism
Languages : en
Pages : 189

Book Description
An autobiographical account of a journey into extremism

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise

Life is More Beautiful Than Paradise PDF Author: Khālid Birrī
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781649030177
Category : Muslims
Languages : en
Pages :

Book Description
"In 1986, when this autobiography opens, the author is a typical fourteen-year-old boy in Asyut in Upper Egypt. Attracted at first by the image of a radical Islamist group as "strong Muslims," his involvement develops until he finds himself deeply committed to its beliefs and implicated in its activities. This ends when, as he leaves the university following a demonstration, he is arrested. Prison, a return to life on the outside, and attending Cairo University all lead to Khaled al-Berry's eventual alienation from radical Islam. This book opens a window onto the mind of an extremist who turns out to be disarmingly like many other clever adolescents, and bears witness to a history with whose reverberations we continue to live. It also serves as an intelligent and critical guide for the reader to the movement's unfamiliar debates and preoccupations, motives and intentions. Fluently written, intellectually gripping, exciting, and often funny, Life Is More Beautiful than Paradise provides a vital key to the understanding of a world that is both a source of fear and a magnet of curiosity for the west"--

Soccer in the Middle East

Soccer in the Middle East PDF Author: Alon Raab
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317605357
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 253

Book Description
Soccer is a vital part of the Middle East’s cultural and political fabric, most recently demonstrated by the way the recent successes of the Iraqi national team suggested possibilities of unity and solidarity. This edited collection explores the multifaceted connections between soccer and society in the Middle East. It examines the broader social significance of soccer and its importance to individual lives, how the game acts as a source of both conflict and unity and how it relates to religious belief. The chapters in this volume include an analysis of the role of ‘African’ identity in the Egyptian and Moroccan bids to host the 2010 World Cup, the relationship between FIFA and Palestinian statehood and a case-study examination of the UltrAslan, an organisation of Galatasaray fans, that challenges Turkish fandom’s violent and nationalistic reputation. The themes of this book are also addressed through the perspective of individual accounts and literary selections. This collection offers a crucial insight into the hope that soccer can provide, how it captures the imagination and embodies the values and dreams of its followers in the complex, dynamic and politically fraught societies of the Middle East. This book was originally published as a special issue of Soccer & Society.

Birds of Paradise

Birds of Paradise PDF Author: Tim Laman
Publisher: National Geographic Books
ISBN: 1426209584
Category : Birds of paradise (Birds)
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Book Description
In this dazzling photo essay, Laman and Scholes present gorgeous full-color photographs of all 39 species of the Birds of Paradise that highlight their unique and extraordinary plumage and mating behavior.

Cairo Swan Song

Cairo Swan Song PDF Author: Makkāwī Saʻīd
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 9774163060
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 295

Book Description
Cairo, Mother of the World, embraces millions--but some of her children make their home in the streets, junked up and living in the shadows of wealth and among the monuments that the tourists flock to see. Mustafa, a former student radical who never believed in the slogans, sets out to tell their story, but he has to rely on the help of his American girlfriend, Marcia, who he is not sure he can trust. Meanwhile, his former leftist friends are now all either capitalists or Islamists. Alienated from a corrupt and corrupting society, Mustafa watches as the Cairo he cherishes crumbles around him. The men and women of the city struggle to find lovers worthy of their love and causes worthy of their sacrifice in a country that no longer deserves their loyalty. The children of the streets wait for the adults to take notice. And the foreigners can always leave.

The Dictatorship Syndrome

The Dictatorship Syndrome PDF Author: Alaa Al Aswany
Publisher: Haus Publishing
ISBN: 1912208601
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 153

Book Description
The study of dictatorship in the West has acquired an almost exotic dimension. But authoritarian regimes remain a painful reality for billions of people worldwide who still live under them, their freedoms violated and their rights abused. They are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, corruption, ignorance, and injustice. What is the nature of dictatorship? How does it take hold? In what conditions and circumstances is it permitted to thrive? And how do dictators retain power, even when reviled and mocked by those they govern? In this deeply considered and at times provocative short work, Alaa Al Aswany tells us that, as with any disease, to understand the syndrome of dictatorship we must first consider the circumstances of its emergence, along with the symptoms and complications it causes in both the people and the dictator.

Beautiful Birds

Beautiful Birds PDF Author: Edmund Selous
Publisher: DigiCat
ISBN:
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 134

Book Description
With captivating illustrations, 'Beautiful Birds' is a perfect companion for kids, bird-watchers, and wildlife enthusiasts. It is ideal for everyone who wishes to enjoy the world's rich and varied bird life. The book was designed especially for children to help them learn everything they need to know about the wonderful feathered friends. Contents include: Why Beautiful Birds are Killed Birds of Paradise The Great Bird of Paradise The Red Bird of Paradise The Lesser, Black, Blue, and Golden Birds of Paradise About all Birds of Paradise, and some Explanations About Humming-Birds, and some more Explanations Some very Bright Humming-Birds Hermit Humming-Birds and Two Other Ones The Cock-of-the-Rock and the Lyre-Bird The Resplendent Trogon and the Argus Pheasant White Egrets, "Ospreys," and Ostrich-Feathers

Bodies in Conflict

Bodies in Conflict PDF Author: Paul Cornish
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317916913
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 249

Book Description
Twentieth-century war is a unique cultural phenomenon and the last two decades have seen significant advances in our ability to conceptualize and understand the past and the character of modern technological warfare. At the forefront of these developments has been the re-appraisal of the human body in conflict, from the ethics of digging up First World War bodies for television programmes to the contentious political issues surrounding the reburial of Spanish Civil War victims, the relationships between the war body and material culture (e.g. clothing, and prostheses), ethnicity and identity in body treatment, and the role of the ‘body as bomb’ in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. Focused on material culture, Bodies in Conflict revitalizes investigations into the physical and symbolic worlds of modern conflict and that have defined us as subjects through memory, imagination, culture and technology. The chapters in this book present an interdisciplinary approach which draws upon, but does not privilege archaeology, anthropology, military and cultural history, art history, cultural geography, and museum and heritage studies. The complexity of modern conflict demands a coherent, integrated, and sensitized hybrid approach which calls on different disciplines where they overlap in a shared common terrain - that of the materiality of conflict and its aftermath in relation to the human body. Bodies in Conflict brings together the diverse interests and expertise of a host of disciplines to create a new intellectual engagement with our corporeal nature in times of conflict.