Number 28, 2022 Spring Edition
Contents 3
WELCOME FROM OUR CHAIR
THE IASA LETTER FROM THE EDITOR TRUSTEE NEWS
5
IASA LECTURES FORTHCOMING LECTURES
6
5 10 11
SEMINAR FOR ARABIAN STUDIES IASA RESEARCH GRANTS
11
NEWS AND RESEARCH BY COUNTRY BAHRAIN
13
OMAN
16
SAUDI ARABIA
26
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
28
YEMEN
34
EXHIBITIONS
24
NEW PUBLICATIONS ON ARABIA
36
THE LAST WORD
37
GAMIFICATION AS A STORYTELLING
Excavations in Samahij and Muharraq Town, Bahrain : excavation in MUH-3 (photo. R. MacLean), see p. 11
TOOL
WELCOME FROM OUR CHAIR
you encounter in using the website by emailing contact@theiasa.com.
Welcome to the first IASA Bulletin of 2022. We are welcoming several new people to the IASA in this issue, as well as outlining the events we have to look forward to over the rest of the year.
Members elected two new trustees at the AGM on 14 October. Dr Ahmad al-Jallad and José Carvajal López – see the section on Trustees to learn more about them. Dionisius Agius stood down after six years as trustee. We are very grateful for all that he has done for the IASA.
We have appointed Sarah Campbell as the new Outreach Consultant and editor of the Bulletin, of which this is her first edition. Sarah, who is from New Zealand, is a research assistant at the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, and has a lot of experience with publications and communications, which she brings to the Bulletin. I am delighted that we have found such an excellent successor to Carolyn Perry, who has done so much for the IASA. Sarah is assisted by a new Research Editor, Maria Gajewska, who is currently doing a PhD at Cambridge University, and by the Reviews Editor Alexandra Hirst. I hope you like and find helpful the new IASA website at https://iasarabia.org/. We needed to update our website after more than ten years, especially considering the majority of people now access the site using their phones or handheld devices, for which the new website is well suited. It took longer than we had anticipated to get it done but I am delighted at the way it works. Do please give us comments that might further improve it or let us know of any problems
I am delighted that the Seminar for Arabian Studies will take place in Berlin as a physical and virtual event. Further details are in this Bulletin. We are planning a joint workshop with the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL – chaired by one of our trustees, Bob Bewley), a lecture by Dr José Carvajal López, and another by William Facey, a former trustee and reviews editor for the Bulletin, on Charles Huber – France’s Greatest Arabian Explorer. We are working on the Beatrice di Cardi Lecture in October by Professor Hugh Kennedy on al-Baladhuri, the historian of the Muslim Conquests. That will be an in-person event with a reception afterwards and a chance for members to meet each other after more than two years of Covid-19 restrictions. Clive Holes, another of our trustees, will also be giving a lecture later this year or early next. Details will follow nearer the time.
3
