سيد اسماعيل بهبهاني سيد إسماعيل بهبهاني حاصل على الماجستير في التاريخ من جامعة أوكسفورد بروكس في المملكة المتحدة: ركزت أبحاثه حول نشأة الإسلام في البيئة الفكرية والاعتقادية العربية. وكان موضوع رسالته حول ما إذا كان أهل م ّكة من معتنقي ديانة كتابية (سماوية) قبيل الإسلام. صدر له كتاب وحوش القصيدة، والذي يؤرخ لدور الحيوانات المهددة اليوم بالانقراض، يؤرخ دورها في الشعر العربي الجاهلي، تحفيزاً لحمايتها من الفناء. ونشرت له مقالتان حول الحيوان في الشعر العربي القديم في مجلة البيان التابعة لرابطة الأدباء الكويتية. “الحجة التراثية والثقافية في حماية الحيوانات المهددة: كتاب وحوش القصيدة.” تتناول المحاضرة الأهمية الثقافية البيئية للحفاظ وصون الحيوانات المهددة بالانقراض في وقتنا الحالي. ويستعرض الدواعي البيئية والطبيعية…

Dr. Abdullah Alhajeri entitled: “Complications of establishing the history of Kuwait”  

Alison Shan Price Founder of One World Actors Centre CIC (UK), Ms Alison Shan Price has lived in Kuwait for 35 years. In 2017, she was awarded an MBE by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth for her services to the Dramatic Arts in Kuwait and the Middle East. This lecture is the fifth in the series entitled “The Middle East & Victoria’s Women” which discuss the extraordinary, early 20th Century, female explorers who devoted their lives to the people of the Near & Middle East. Gertrude Lowthian Bell CBE: Honorary Director of Antiquities of the Iraq Museum. In the National Museum of Iraq there is a dedication in Arabic, which reads…

Sarang Sharma Mr Sarang Sharma, a junior research assistant in Pundole’s auction house, Mumbai, is pursuing his PhD on Pahari miniature painting. He completed his Masters in Art History and Aesthetics at The Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, with emphasis on Islamic Art and Architecture. Specialising in Mughal architecture, Sarang’s thesis discusses the semiotics and political undertones of Mughal chahar-bagh gardens in the Indian subcontinent. Political Paradigms of the Mughal Gardens in South Asia: A study of the Mughal chahar- bagh gardens in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan. The Mughals laid a number of Persian quadripartite chahar-bagh gardens in the Indian subcontinent especially during the reign of Jahangir and Shah…

A lecture by Dr. Khalid Shuqair Khalid entitled : “History of Children’s Literature in the Arab World: The Beginnings  

Tarif El Hoss. Mr Tarif El Hoss is an independant scholar. He is also a partner and managing director of El Hoss Engineering and Transport Company in Kuwait. In preparation for this lecture, El Hoss traveled across Russia on the TransSiberian Express to get a first hand view of the vastness of the area covered by the author, albeit in much easier conditions. As a graduate student at AUB, his Master’s thesis focused on Islamic inscribed metalwork in The al-Sabah Collection. From Beirut to Siberia and Back: Life of an Ottoman officer in exile based on his unpublished war diaries (1916-1919) The talk will present a first hand view of…

“The Kitchen in Ancient Arabic Manuscripts: A Lexical Study” presented by Prof. Salam Diyab. Lecture: The Arabs have always been interested in eating and food since ancient times. From early times, they created several books of food. The first reference to it in the history of Arab-Islamic civilization was contained in the Qura’an in Surat al-Maida.  

Bio. Dr. Hashim Sarkis is an architect, educator, and scholar. He is the principal of Hashim Sarkis Studios (HSS), established in 1998 with offices in Boston and Beirut. He is also the Dean of the School of Architecture and Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Before joining MIT, he was the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at Harvard University. Sarkis is the author and editor of several books and articles on modern architecture history and theory. What If? Through an overview of recent projects by Hashim Sarkis Studios, between Beirut and Cambridge MA, the lecture will reflect on the role that architecture plays in anchoring…

Bio. Dr Julian Raby is the director emeritus of the Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution’s national museums of Asian art in Washington DC. Before joining the Smithsonian in 2002, he was a lecturer in Islamic Art & Architecture at the University of Oxford for 22 years. He has written widely on topics as diverse as Iznik pottery, Ilkhanid paintings, Mosul metalwork, Chinese porcelain at the Ottoman court, and the “classical revival” in twelfth century Syria. From the Founder of Constantinople to the Founder of Istanbul: Mehmed the Conqueror and the Church of the Holy Apostles. In 1453 the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed the…

Bio. Dr Ziad Rajab is the director of the New English School and a Tareq Rajab Museum board member. In addition to being a human resource specialist, he is involved in the arts, and has non-professional certifications in bookbinding, illumination, portraiture, oil painting and pottery. He is also an accomplished flautist. Important Manuscripts in the Tareq Rajab Museum: The lives of the calligraphers Calligraphy has been considered a high art form in the Islamic world from the earliest days, with a particular flowering during the Abbasid Empire. At that time, calligraphers were revered and respected much as artists were in Italy during the Renaissance. The caliphs were often great patrons…