I Begin this talk by telling you a story, that of a Spaniard who was living in the Moroccan city of Tangiers. One day he came to see the president of the local Council of Ulemas and said to him: “I feel attracted to your religion. I would have embraced it already but for one thing which disturbs me.”

“What is it?” asked the ‘Alim.

“I am a musician by profession,” answered the Spaniard, “and Islam forbids music.”

“Who told you that?” retorted the ‘Alim angrily. The would-be convert didn’t reply, which he would have done nowadays, as I hear it in the news; he simply pulled out of his pocket a sheet of paper and gave it to the man of religion who read it and understood everything. It was an ad for a book recently published by a local professor. The ‘Alim began to explain patiently that the book was five centuries old and that it was about a theological controversy known as the Sama’ Dispute over the way the Koran should be read in public. What was forbidden, at least in the eyes of some clerics, was to sing the words of the Holy message because the listener would be more interested in the music than in the meaning. But it was soon clear for the ‘Alim that he was speaking for nothing. His visitor had read in the article exactly what he was hoping to find, an Islam more rigorous, stern, severe than his own religion. Otherwise his conversion would be pointless. The kind of Islam the ‘Alim was offering him, simple, moderate, conciliatory, Jesuitical in a word, wasn’t the real thing.

In the past, the majlis or dıwanıyah a sitting room used for socializing in many Gulf homes, was often a place of music-making. In recent years, however, the ‘ud, duff, and tabl have been supplanted by satellite TV, Wi-Fi Internet connections, and video game consoles. Other long-established music-making contexts in the Gulf have also disappeared, particularly songs associated with maritime occupations that were such an intrinsic part of life in the recent past. Some of these songs were performed as accompaniments to tasks on ships, such as pulling up the anchor or setting the sail, whereas others were songs of supplication, asking God for protection from the perils of the seas (Al-Taee 2005). Traditional music in the region has also suffered from the breakdown of original patronage systems, as wealthy merchants now seek to invest in skyscrapers and artificially created islands rather than support musical ensembles. With the disappearance of these traditional music-making contexts and support networks, mass media has increasingly become the primary mode of experiencing music, both old and new, in the region.

Teaching modern Middle East history at the University of Melbourne raises problems of culture. Students are not generally acquainted with the Middle East and North Africa—even those whose families originate there—news coverage is patchy, and Australia is far away. Not all students are even arts students let alone history majors: our degree structure requires interdisciplinary study. The University is liberal about how to assess students, only requiring that during a twelve-week semester subject a student must write 4000 words. Within broad bounds, how teachers do this is up to them, although the Arts Faculty has a culture of avoiding unseen examinations. History major students are very accustomed to the “traditional” researched essay format, but it does not provide much variety of intellectual training; it is unfamiliar to non-Arts students; in classes that regularly number over 100 students, it is tiring and boring to assess; and large numbers of essays are freely available online. So I have introduced an assessment task to replace the standard researched essay. The purpose here is to describe an alternative approach to assessment and learning by using a simulation: in that sense the actual topic of the simulation is secondary. It concerns refugees, which is of course, a matter of vital current concern, but it is the reasoning behind the task that I hope is instructive.

Some years ago, a colleague from another institution told me how much she was looking forward to screening Nasser 56 in her introductory Middle East history course. Students had just finished reading about the Nasser era, and the screening of Muhamad Fadel's stylish biopic starring the charismatic film star Ahmed Zaki would serve as an enjoyable way to round out the unit. I was surprised, not at my colleague's use of the film in her class, but at her timing. Released in 1996, Nasser 56 is very much the product of the Mubarak era. It offers rich opportunities to discuss the particular challenges Egypt faced in the 1990s and how this nostalgic look back at a triumphant moment in Gamal Abdel Nasser's (Jamal ʿAbd al-Nasir's) presidency was marshalled to animate an economically and politically fraught period. Its celebration of ʿAbd al-Nasir as an effective and caring patriarch to the nation could be interpreted as an endorsement of Egypt's authoritarian political system. However, the film is less useful as an explication of ʿAbd al-Nasir as a political figure, or of 1950s Egypt.

Every year, I teach a broad survey course on the Modern Middle East (between 120 and 200 students), along with seminars on a wide range of topics. Regardless of the content of these courses, I have three big goals. I want them to come away understanding that the history of the region is more complex and fascinating than they learned in high school and from the pundits, and the simplistic assumptions and solutions they offer answer no questions. Second, I want to persuade them that things change over time, and we can't understand anything without knowing its context—and the context of the Middle East is global. But most imperative: I want to convince students to be critical in analyzing sources of information. Informed citizenship requires students to be able to think critically, and that is what historians do offer. We analyze multiple sources in myriad ways.

In 1493, a Czech nobleman named Jan Hasištejnský z Lobkovic embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As nearly all Central European pilgrims did, he traveled south through the Tyrol to Venice and joined a large, multinational group there before setting out across the Mediterranean. He remained nearly a month in Venice, meeting prominent political figures, visiting churches and cloisters, and admiring the realism of the painting and sculpture of the Venetian quattrocento. Among all the other marvels of Venice that he describes in his 1505 travelogue is the memory of his day trip to the island of Murano. “In this little town,” he writes, “there are, I think, close to seventy artisans or more, and all are glass makers.” He describes some of the fine works that he saw there, and eagerly adds, “and there is always a great quantity of these various things completed, so that whoever arrives wants to buy something of it.” In this moment, the fifteenth-century tourist is not that far removed from his counterpart in the twenty-first century.

Manuscript libraries, the items collected in them, their location, and something of their history can be classified as follows (previous work on this subject was described in Lütfü Eroğiu’s “Istanbul Kütüphaneleri”):

1. 1. Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Libraries.

2. 2. Ministry of Culture and Tourism’s libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Monuments and Museums.

3. 3. University libraries.

4. 4. Public libraries.

5. 5. Libraries under the auspices of the General Directorate of Foundations.

6. 6. Private libraries, such as those associated with banks or newspapers.

On the dramaturgical map of western Asia, the huge section long held by Czarist and Soviet Russia deserves attentive scrutiny. Theatrical life has been especially rich in the multi-ethnic Transcaucasus and, to a lesser degree, in the Tatar homelands and Central Asia, at least since medieval times. In certain respects the area leads the entire Middle East in this field. Theater in the region is abundant as well as versatile in form. It has given to both players and audiences literary religious performances, a secular neoclassical drama, folk comedy, modern European-style stage works, and ideologically-committed theater, as well as numerous plays translated or adapted from West and East. But how far the modern dramas may be identified either as local Asian or international Western remains a serious question for every specialist.