Full Moon over Bagdad: a collection of evocative short stories that recalls a key moment in the history of Iraq and the Middle East. Apparently independent, these fourteen chapters are actually intertwined by the presence of the moon which marks existences and events, together as well as quotes from Arabic poetry. The reader will be enthralled by tales of diverse Arab cultures for which the moon has always held profound significance “… Each one of us is tied by the moon by an invisible thread that gathers us together the way silk fronds arrange the pearls of a necklace.” Two decades have passed since the invasion of Iraq. Yet bombs and calamities continue to fall upon other countries affected by this event. Despite the geopolitical chaos it engendered across the Islamic world which has made peace seem a distant dream, these stories reveal the diverse resources of Arabic cultures that enable them to survive… Akram Belkaïd is editor-in-chief of Le Monde diplomatique. Born in Algeria in 1964, he graduated from an engineering school and began his career in Algeria writing for Le Quotidien d’Algérie and La Nation. He settled in France in 1996 where he wrote for the economic and financial daily La Tribune. Author of several works on Algeria, the Maghreb and the Middle East, his work also covers current events, commodity markets and international geopolitics of the entire Arab world.

Baghdad: The City in Verse captures the essence of life lived in one of the world’s great enduring metropolises. In this unusual anthology, Reuven Snir offers original translations of more than 170 Arabic poems—most of them appearing for the first time in English—which represent a cross-section of genres and styles from the time of Baghdad’s founding in the eighth century to the present day. The diversity of the fabled city is reflected in the Bedouin, Muslim, Christian, Kurdish, and Jewish poets featured here, including writers of great renown and others whose work has survived but whose names are lost to history. Through the prism of these poems, readers glimpse many different Baghdads: the city built on ancient Sumerian ruins, the epicenter of Arab culture and Islam’s Golden Age under the enlightened rule of Harun al-Rashid, the bombed-out capital of Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime, the American occupation, and life in a new but unstable Iraq. With poets as our guides, we visit bazaars, gardens, wine parties, love scenes (worldly and mystical), brothels, prisons, and palaces. Startling contrasts emerge as the day-to-day cacophony of urban life is juxtaposed with eternal cycles of the Tigris, and hellish winds, mosquitoes, rain, floods, snow, and earthquakes are accompanied by somber reflections on invasions and other catastrophes. Documenting the city’s 1,250-year history, Baghdad: The City in Verse shows why poetry has been aptly called the public register of the Arabs.

Originally pub. in 1973; reprinted in 1994. Presents tables giving the dates of all new and full moons during an historical era when these data were of considerable interest and importance. The longitudes of the moon at each of these times is also given, as is a consecutive enumeration of the conjunctions and a similar one of the oppositions. All dates are reckoned in the Julian calendar. These dates and times are calculated for an observer in Babylon, or equivalently Baghdad, since this location is fairly centrally located for the historians of the period. The time used is civil time and is based on a 24-hour clock with its origin at midnight. Since this vol. may be considered as a suppl. to Tuckerman's tables, all fundamental astronomical elements have been taken from them.