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This paper examines official and personal Omani accounts of the 1964 Zanzibari revolution and its aftermath. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Oman and Zanzibar, official and local histories in Oman as well as archival documents in London and Zanzibar, it explores understandings and descriptions of the revolution's causes, its perpetrators, and its victims. Though Zanzibar gained independence from Britain in 1963, many African-identified Zanzibaris feared that the subsequent parliamentary elections would simply reinstate the island's “Arab” elite. And, indeed, in January 1964, in the aftermath of the elections, armed revolt broke out, leading to the massacre and expulsion of thousands of people who were popularly identified as “Arab”. This event, and especially later news that officials of the new post-independence Zanzibari state were forcing some remaining Arab women to marry them and encouraging other men to do the same, have left indelible marks on personal and national accounts of Oman's past in East Africa. Undoubtedly, such accounts of violence have helped shape national identity through a sense of shared trauma and victimhood. However, many questions remain: What are the differences between accounts of those who were either witness to or contemporaries of these events and accounts of those, much younger Omanis, who were notṣ How are social, political, and economic hierarchies and resentments presentedṣ How are they occludedṣ And, to what affectsṣ This paper illustrates how different Omani accounts of the Zanzibari revolution also often reveal personal and national nostalgia for life in East Africa, reflect people's subtle attempts to grapple with the political, social, and economic conditions of the revolution's eruption, and indicate tensions and hierarchies between various groups of Omanis who had lived in East Africa. Ultimately, this paper also argues that in addition to helping to shape a shared yet fragile national identity, accounts of the violence of the Zanzibar revolution have sometimes reinforced and sometimes raised doubts about notions of a shared Omani “Arabness”.

Le Sultanat d’Oman est un pays du Moyen-Orient souvent méconnu du grand public. Fort d’une influence douce dans les relations internationales, ses choix politiques sont orientés par la diplomatie discrète et par une tradition de tolérance, ce qui le positionne comme acteur géostratégique central de la région. Depuis la prise...

The conservation of historical buildings in developed countries has been very common, well carried out, and accumulated a wealth of experience. Conversely, the developing countries do not have this experience, qualified experts or professionals to handle the restoration process of historical buildings independently. So, unless the developing countries received comprehensive support from the related cultural societies and institutions in developed countries for the conservation of its historical heritage, many problems will arise and excessive sums of money will be incurred. The Omani–French museum is a case in point. Through discussing the renovation process of the aforesaid building- as a case study- this paper will highlight some critical issues such as the importance of involving an integrated team of highly qualified professionals. The precautions to maintain the wellbeing of the building against any further problems arising or required modifications must also be included in the mission of the said team. Authentic treatment of historical buildings must be highly considered, taking in consideration the new standards of rehabilitating process. Any modern techniques or plants needed must be added with great care to blend with the essence of the original environment.

Once in 1997, in a lecture on 'L'avenir des religions en dialogue', at the Church of St Paul in Strasbourg, Paul Ricœur argued that Islam could not really take part in debates on modernity. Maybe he simply meant that Islam as a whole had not yet been worked upon by modernity, that it did not 'think' itself in modernity yet. This statement, which is certainly not to be understood as an exclusion of Islam, is indeed interesting from a philosopher of modernity who saw in the Weberian approach of history an 'anti-Hegelian solution'. This recalls how the great German philosopher handled Islam, which he undoubtedly admired, but which he also relegated to Oriental quietism. For Hegel, Islam vacated active history along with its 'progress' towards the fulfilment of the Idea of Liberty. In other words, modernity would henceforth proceed without Islam. Indeed, Max Weber did not really think about the situation of Islam in modernity, nor as an actor in modernity. At that time, much of the Muslim world was under European domination, and the army of the Ottoman empire itself was under the control of German experts. The Muslim Caliphate had moreover no other importance other than that with regard to Germany's Mitteleuropa policy. The other European powers that were to dismember the Ottoman empire were already 'Islamic powers', as can be read in Becker on the French colonial empire. Weber certainly witnessed the storm in the teacup echoed by his fellow countryman Becker and the Dutchman Snouck Hurgronje about the Ottoman Shayẖ al-islām's call to holy war. But he did not envisage the disappearance of the Caesaropapism and its consequences for Islam as a whole and, especially, for the Islamic Church, which was his focus of interest. What interests us here is that Weber, who underlined the linkage between the configuration of modern capitalism and Christian movements stemming from the Reformation, sometimes presents Islam as the antithesis of this modernity. Yet we speak at the moment of a kind of Islamic 'protestantisation', to mark the adaptation of the Islamic ethic to the spirit of modern globalized capitalism. But what is perhaps much more interesting is that Weber had already anticipated what we can call the 'Protestant' content of Islam. This of course predated Protestantism and is not central to today's considerations.

The reign of Alphonso the Magnanimous (1416-1458) is an exceptional laboratory for the study of war. Its recurrence and the different areas where the armies were mobilized are a unique setting for observation. It is even more outstanding thanks to the vast amount of documentation preserved, which allows us to study the period in a much wider way. The aim of this paper is to do a first approximation to the great effort done by the monarchy of the Crown of Aragon to end the old military conflicts ―war against Genoa and Sardinia (1420-1421) and the problems with the crown of Castile since 1425― before starting the North African offense. We will especially focus on the open war against Castile (1429-1430), a conflict contrary to the intentions of the king, who claimed to his aristocracy not to fall into Castilian provocations. In addition, the king encountered great difficulties in his own territories, since the projects of the leaders of the Catalan Courts clashed against the eagerness of the king. Therefore, since 1423 this sequence of conflicts impeded the departure of a royal fleet against the Tunisian island of Djerba that was started to build in 1429, but was not materialized until 1432. Finally, we will display the genesis of the military conflicts of Alphonso the Magnanimous to understand how the eagerness of the king brought him to reach agreements with his old enemies and shift his alliances. The king’s necessity of resources for building new armies and, thus, creating new enemies is, in this sense, the result of the expansionist desire of the monarch.

En las atarazanas reales de Barcelona se trabajaba en la reparación y construcción de navíos y galeras. Uno de los momentos más importantes de su existencia era la preparación de una flota destinada a una empresa concreta. La voluntad de esta comunicación es la de reconstruir los aspectos asociados a la construcción naval centrándonos en la obtención, compra y transporte de la madera de los a la capital catalana, para luego poder ver los procesos de su manipulación y preparación, dónde intervienen multitud de oficios.

The reign of Alfons the Magnanimous (1416-1458) is an exceptional laboratory for the social study of war. Its recurrence and the different areas where the armies were mobilized are a unique setting for observation. And it is even more outstanding thanks to the vast amount of documentation preserved, which allows us to study the period in a much wider way. The aim of this paper would be to approach the human component of the medieval Catalano-aragonese armadas studying the particular case of the Royal fleet organised by King Alfons the Magnanimous in 1432 against de Tunisian island of Djerba. Often the motivation and relationship between the sea and the men who participated in such expeditions were very diverse, heterogeneous or even non-existent. The armada became somehow an exchange between social groups, sometimes forced, of different influences –economic, social, political, cultural- of different social status, communities of diverse territories and Kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon and, finally, between seafarers and landsmen.

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