Arabian Publishing – Sherif’s Page
Arabian Publishing is an imprint dedicated to the Arabian Peninsula and related topics.
Founded in 2002 by Mr William Facey, AP books are researched, edited, designed and produced to the highest standards, to appeal to both scholars and general readers. AP also carries out research programmes into documentary and photographic sources relating to Arabian history and culture.
Some notable titles from AP include Pilgrimage to Mecca by Lady Evelyn Cobbold, Seen in the Yemen by Hugh Leech, and the magnificent Sea of Pearls: Seven Thousand Years of the Industry That Shaped the Gulf by Professor Robert Carter.
Forthcoming titles include Across Arabia by Geraldine Rendel and The Afghanistan File by Prince Turki AlFaisal Al-Saud.
New Releases
SPOTLIGHT
Prison Time in Sana’a.
Prison Time in Sana’a tells the story of Dr Abdulkader Al-Guneid’s harrowing experience inside jail in Yemen’s capital shortly after it was taken over by Houthi rebels.
In his hometown of Taiz, Al-Guneid, a medical doctor, had been an outspoken figure on Yemeni politics for decades. In recent years, his social media and interviews were read around the world and attracted a global following from an audience anxious to hear an unbiased explanation of the underlying roots of the conflict. Ultimately, his activism placed him in the movement’s crosshairs, leading to his abduction on 5 August 2015 and incarceration in an undisclosed Houthi jail in Sana’a. For the next 300 days, Al-Guneid shared his time with American hostages, Houthi fighters, Al Qaeda militants and ordinary Yemenis caught up in the chaos of war. Following his release, he wrote about his experience in exhaustive and gripping detail from exile in Canada. Initially typing his entire account on his mobile phone, his story has since been distilled into a deeply personal account of his incarceration offering an extraordinarily candid perspective on the Yemen crisis from deep within Houthi-held territory.
Featured Titles
CASE STUDY
Sea of Pearls
Seven Thousand Years of the Industry That Shaped the Gulf
Since antiquity the natural pearls of the Gulf have been famed as the finest, most lustrous and most plentiful in the world. From the beginnings of trade till the 1930s, they were a major product of the Gulf ’s coastal peoples. From the 17th to the early 20th centuries, rising demand turned pearling into their economic mainstay. By this time pearls were fished in their millions, and the industry dominated the lives, health and expectations of entire shaikhdoms. The influx of people and wealth to the coast permanently transformed the Gulf, providing the manpower and capital to nurture the city-states – Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah and Ras al-Khaimah – which endure there today.
Despite its formative role, there has until now been no book dealing with the pearl industry’s entire history. This ground-breaking work traces its evolution on the Arabian and Persian sides of the Gulf, and explores the role it played in shaping the political, social and urban configuration of the region today. It shows the extent to which the Gulf economy became dependent on a single commodity, and thus how pearling resembled the oil industry to come.
Lavishly illustrated, it covers in unprecedented detail the history, development, conduct, florescence and catastrophic collapse of the industry in the early 20th century. It will fascinate not only those wishing to understand the growth and conduct of the pearl fishery, but also those interested in the history of the region and the origins of the Gulf states, and in the colourful story of the global taste for one of mankind’s most highly prized precious stones.
Dr Robert Carter
Dr Robert Carter was educated at Oxford and the Institute of Archaeology, UCL, where he began his archaeological career. He has since worked on excavations throughout the Gulf. From 2003 to 2006 he was G. A. Wainwright Research Fellow in Near Eastern Archaeology at Oxford. He has worked as a consultant on rescue excavations in the Gulf, both independently and as leader of Oxford Brookes Archaeology and Heritage. Chair of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 2005–11, he is now a trustee of the British Foundation for the Study of Arabia (BFSA). He is currently Senior Lecturer at UCL-Qatar, Doha.
