Jabra Ghneim has brought two interesting though quite different articles to my attention. The first describes new research into the “intoxication” with language that Western scholars have often noted in classical Arabic culture — which, the Stanford professor behind the research says, reflects a linguistic sophistication that the medieval West lacked at the same period and from which, he says, literary critics and others in the modern West could still learn:
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/january/arabic-language-key-012315.html
He also brought to my notice this piece — a somewhat surprising one — about the Jews of Bahrein (on the Arabian Peninsula):
http://www.yourmiddleeast.com/culture/bahrains-synagogue-the-only-one-on-the-arabian-peninsula_29390
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