The Qatar Digital Library (QDL) ! WOW !

It is amazing to see something like this in the Arabic World. I didn't believe that this would exist some day in our region, but I was wrong. I think this is a good start in Libraries , manuscripts  and collection management. So, Go ahead QDL !

Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's editions of the Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts

First part of a collection of Naṣīr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī's (نصير الدين محمد بن محمد الطوسي; d. 1274) editions (تحارير) of the so-called intermediate books (متوسطات), Arabic versions of ancient Greek mathematical texts and responses to them which were meant to be read after Euclid's Elements and in preparation for Ptolemy's Almagest . The second part of this collection is found in manuscript IO Islamic 923.

The script, ornamentation and binding of the volume indicate that it is part of a set comprising also manuscripts IO Islamic 923 and IO Islamic 924. Since the latter was transcribed in 1198/1784, probably for Warren Hastings, Governor-General of Bengal from 1772 to 1785 (see front paper iirecto ), the collation notes in this manuscript dated to the month of Jumādá I without indication of the year probably refer to 1198 (March-April 1784).

Contents:
(1) Euclid (أقليدس), Data (تحرير كتاب المعطيات لإقليدس; ff. 1v-35r);
(2) Euclid (أقليدس), Optica (تحرير المناظر لإقليدس; ff. 36v-56r);
(3) Euclid (أقليدس), Phenomena (كتاب ظاهرات الفلك لأقليدس; ff. 57v-86r);
(4) Autolycus (أوطولوقس), De ortibus et occasibus (كتاب أوطولوقس في الطلوع والغروب; ff. 87v-110r);
(5) Hypsicles (إبسقلاوس), Anaphoricus (كتاب في المطالع; ff. 111v-116r);
(6) Archimedes (أرشميدس), De sphaera et cylindro (كتاب الكرة والأسطوانة; ff. 118v-231v);
(7) Archimedes (أرشميدس), Dimensio circuli (مقالة أرشميدس في تكسير الدائرة; ff. 231v-238r).

The book is extremely beautiful ! see from here.

Ancient Greek online Grammar course for Arabic Students

I and my colleauge Ahmed Abdalazem (Menoufia University) have begun an online Ancient Greek grammar Course for the Arabic students. The audio series are posted regularly online on the channel of Ahmed Abdalazem on Youtube. The text book used in this series is Hardy Hansen and Gerald M. Quinn, Greek : An Intensive Course, 1992 Fordham University press.

We hope that a lot of students will find the series useful for them to catch up, revise, or intensive what they already know of this language.

List of Publications of Magda El-Nowieemy

I've to record my admiration of what Prof. Dr. Magda El-Nowieemy are doing in her Academia.edu page. She is very active. Most recently she has put a list of her publications on the website. I do have a problem collecting material concerning academic publications of Egyptian and Arabic scholars of classics, but if all the Arabic scholars inside and outside Egypt followed the example of Magda El-Nowieemy, I would not have any problem at all. So, thanks you !

Her is the link to the file containing her publications: Publications-Magda-El-Nowieemy.  

A Digital Corpus for Graeco-Arabic Studies

Between the 8th and 10th centuries AD, hundreds of Greek philosophical and scientific works were translated into Arabic. These translations exerted immense influence on the development of philosophy and science in the Islamic world and, through a later process of translation and transmission, in the Latin West as well.

The Digital Corpus assembles a wide range of such texts together with their Greek counterparts, where available, but also a number of Arabic commentaries and crucial secondary sources such as Arabic bio-bibliographical works.

Access the database through this link.

© 2014 - Supported by Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Harvard University, Tufts University

Seneca's Medea, Phaedra and Agamemnon into Arabic

Dr. Abdel Moaty Shaarawy has translated Three tragedies of  the nine tragedies attributed to Seneca the Younger. He translated Medea, Phadera and Agamemnon directly from Latin into Arabic. The book was published in 2002 by The Anglo-Egypian publishing house.

Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magda El-Nowieemy

An article about Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad by Magday El-Nowieemy is published by the Greek Academy of Institutions and Cultures Society in its webpage in Academia.edu. The paper is titled:  "Sulaiman Al-Bustani's Translation of Homer's Iliad: A Study of Creation and Trans-Creation", Proceedings of the 12th International Congress on Graeco-Oriental andAfrican Studies , held in Delphi, May 2009, in: Graeco-Arabica , vol. 11 (Heraklion, Crete 2011)pp. 247- 256.

The paper is in English and in a pdf format and could be downloaded free through this link.

Taha Hussein's Book : The Future of Culture in Egypt, a free pdf download

Hendawi Foundation is putting online many important Arabic books in Pdf, Kindle, and ePUB format. One of these books is Taha Hussein's " The Future of  Culture in Egypt". The book in my view is better to be called "The Future of Education in Egypt", since he propose to integrate Greek and Latin not only to the secondary schools, but also in many departments in the Egyptian Universities.  His call is up-till now remains completely unfulfilled. The Egyptian universities are still in the process of the implementation of his Nr. 1 idea i.e. Greek and Latin departments. No secondary school whatsoever in Egypt teach Greek or Latin, neither there are full integration of these languages in the departments of the universities in which they are mostly needed e.g. in The faculties of Law !

The book could be downloaded through this link.

ُExpanding the Arabic content of Wikipedia via educational initiative

Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Adel Alnahas, the head of Greek and Latin studies department of Cairo University a pilot project was done in Cairo University to translate the English content into Arabic through students in the department. The guardian has put all the details of this initiative in this article.You can access the program description in Arabic through this link also. The whole archive of the project is to be found here as well.

Dr. Sameh Farouk's Blog

Dr. Sameh Fraouk of Cairo University publishes some of his linguistics thoughts in  an Arabic blog titled " Linguistics Studies in the NT". It appears that the blog was inactive since 2012, I hope he will continue to feed it with his ideas in the days to come. Her is the link to this blog.  

The award-winner of Critisism & Literature Studies award 2012/2013 was the late Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman

It is to be stated that Prof. Dr. Ahmed Etman was the Winner of the Criticism & Literature Studies award in its thirteenth session 2012-2013. The prize is given by Sultan Bin Ali Alowais Foundation. Here is the CV of Ahmed Etman on the website of the foundation.

The concept of ἀγᾰθός in Homer and Hesiod by Dr. Farid Hassan

My dear colleague in the department of Ancient European Civilization ( Ain Shams University, Egypt) Dr. Farid Hassan has generously put a pdf version of his published paper titled  The concept of ἀγᾰθός in Homer and Hesiod  in the Facebook website of the Greek society of the department. You can find and download this paper through this link (agathos).

The last days of Socrates: A Greek philosopher in a Lebanese flavor !

This time a theatrical performance but not from Egypt, but Lebanon. A musical theatrical play called "The Last days of Socrates". It is about Socrates and Athens, but it is a political-charged play about modern day Lebanon. One of the performer is the famous Lebanese musician and actress  Carole Samaha. Enjoy !

Oedipus at Colonus : An Arabic performance based on the translated original

Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus translated by Taha Hussein and performed by Egyptian actors. The audio track starts with an introduction about the author (Sophocles) and the myth of Oedipus.

The Egyptian stage performance of Phaedra ( Jean Racine ?)

I found this video recording of a play titled in Arabic (فيدرا) or Phaedra. I think this is the Arabic translation of the  French play Phèdre by Jean Racine.

The Tragedy of Oedipus: An Arabic Adaptation by Ali Ahmed Bakatheer

An Arabic Islamic reproduction of Sophocles, Oedipus Rex by the writer Ali Ahmed Bakatheer. An audio track on YouTube produced by the Egyptian Radio and TV union  and performed by some of Egyptians famous actors. I can even recognize the voice of the actress  Samiha Ayoub (Jocasta). Because of her long and outstanding  performance in the stage she is called "Arab theatre's leading lady". Oedipus is performed by the Egyptian actor Karam Motawea (Wikipedia page is in Arabic sorry, there is no English page for this actor, but if interested you could translate it by Google). There is also an audio file in Archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/OedipusTheKing

I'm listening to it now. Wow ! this is wonderful !

Learn Arabic online (Aljazeera.net)

It's my pleasure to introduce this platform to all my colleagues all over the world.  Aljazeera Network has now a modern online platform, where one the Arabic language learn, improve, or just explore for fun. It's a professional learning platform mixing traditional Arabic-learning methods  with the modern digital ones. I hope you will enjoy it.

You can learn Arabic in a daily, or weekly basis with just a mouse-click !You can try this website through this link.

P.S.

It's fun for me too !  

Students studying Greek and Latin in Egyptian Universities

Greek and Latin  languages are introduced for students  in Egypt only in universities.These two languages are not taught in secondary schools. During their study students of classics, ancient history, Philosophy ,classical archaeology, English and sometimes German are taught the grammar of these two languages. It goes without saying that students of classics are the only ones who learn  the grammar of these two languages in their first and second semesters and continue to learn intensively their syntax, philology and texts throughout their studies. The other students learn their grammar in various stages of their study program, sometimes in the last semester.

     The total number of students who learn Greek and Latin for the first time in Egypt is estimated to be thousands, but accurate and documented numbers are lacking in this regard. I'm trying to collect these information for the last year 2013/2014 from my colleagues who teach these languages in their class rooms in Ain Shams, Cairo , Alexandria and other universities across the country.

Here is a list where one can find course descriptions ( in Arabic) of Greek and Latin in Egyptian Universities ( I will continue to update this list as long as I find new material online)

1. Cairo University: Greek and Latin, Second Semester, 4 h.w.  (http://classicscu.edu.eg/tawsifat.html).
2.  Ain Shams University: Greek and Latin, First semester, 4 h.w. (http://arts.asu.edu.eg/course/index.php?action=show&cid=1299).
3. Alexandria University, no information available online(http://arts.au.alexu.edu.eg/Arabic/Departments/Department16645/Pages/default.aspx).  

Epistulae Heroidum by Ovidius into Arabic

Epistulae Heroidum  of Ovidius is translated into Arabic for the first time ever. The translation is done by Dr.Ali Abdeltwab Ali and his student Bahaddin Ibrahim. The book is published as the 25th issue of the Cairo university's Project for Translation.

Ancient Greek Grammar series to the Arabic apologetic of the Coptic church in Youtube !

What a multilingualism that one can find even today in this country, Egypt. Ancient Greek Grammar series to the Arabic apologetic of the Coptic church in Youtube.

Searching the internet for an Arabic content, I found this interesting Youtube learning series. The so-called apologetic team ( most probably related to the Coptic Orthodox church) has streamed - completely in Arabic- an Ancient Greek grammar series. It's very interesting for me to see how this language are taught in this context.

Note: they are pronouncing the Ancient Greek not according to Erasmus' reconstruction, but as the modern-day Greek. Accents play no role also for their pronunciation.