Arabic inscription on Coimbra Cathedral “Greatness will stay”
DEUTSCHE WELLE / QANTARA (18/8/2021) The stones of Coimbra’s twelfth-century cathedral glow in the last rays of sunlight on a warm summer evening. Swallows swirl around the austere building as tourists line up to visit the Romanesque monument in Portugal‘s third largest city. The cathedral’s elaborate three-storey portal in the northern façade attracts many visitors. But […]
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The Portuguese rediscovering their country’s Muslim past
AL JAZEERA (10/6/2020) When 33-year-old Mustafa Abdulsattar arrived in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon, four years ago, something struck him as familiar: many Portuguese words sounded like Arabic. After fleeing war in his native Iraq, Abdulsattar had risked his life on a perilous boat trip from Turkey to Greece. Once in Greece, he was offered resettlement in […]
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A língua do outro
CERCHI NELL’ACQUA (DEZ 2018) Em Março de 2016, Hasan Aldewachi, um cientista iraquiano, foi expulso de um voo Easyjet porque a mensagem que estava a escrever no telemóvel em árabe foi vista como suspeita por outros passageiros e denunciada à polícia. Em Outubro do mesmo ano, Khairuldeen Makhzoomi foi obrigado a sair de um avião […]
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“Baynatna – the Arabic library promoting inclusion in Berlin”
AL JAZEERA (12/10/2018) On Friday evenings in Mitte, Berlin’s central district, the sound of an oud travels up from the public library’s ground floor. The Middle Eastern string instrument is being played in a room in Stadtbibliothek, Berlin’s municipal library, where Baynatna has found a home. It is the first Arabic-language public library in the German city. An […]
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