AUB Press

Sayyid Qutb (1906–1966) was the chief spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s. His books provided Islamic fundamentalism with its most important intellectual base. He was twice imprisoned by Nasser and was executed in 1966 for plotting against the government. He is often referred to as a martyr of the Islamic revival, and has had a major influence upon Islamic revivalism today, including the more militant groups such as Al-Jihad and the assassins of Anwar al-Sadat. The author presents an in-depth discussion of Qutb's life and writings, and focuses on the political and intellectual foundations of fundamentalism. He also analyzes Qutb's seven principles of the oneness of God (the tawhid). ​

In this small volume, former AUB President Harold Hoelscher elaborates on material previously presented in the course of three public lectures presented in January 1980 at the American University of Beirut. The author's thesis is that perceptions of technology as either “good" or “bad" are invalid. “Rejection of technology is the rejection of a tool to solve a problem"; yet whether that problem should be solved and by what means are totally different questions. Because of the general nature of Dr. Hoelscher's arguments, the book focuses on questions of continuing relevance about the role of technology in the modern world. ​

​​This book was published during the period of the Lebanese civil war. Therefore, the fieldwork on which its conclusions are based was carried out under extremely difficult circumstances. Nevertheless, the book provides a unique insight into the state of children in a country where civil war raged for ten years. Health, education, child care institutions, and the psychological and physical effects of war are all surveyed and discussed. Implications for action and a summary of major recommendations for action are also included. Sadly, the book will be of value in other parts of the world where the young are most affected by continuing conflicts.

Through observation, participation, questioning, and living with the people of the United Arab Emirates, Dr. Kanafani has gathered interesting and original information on food and body rituals, reporting on habits and practices in coastal cities as well as in desert dwellings, oases, and settlements. This volume presents the author's observations and interpretations, along with thirty-eight photographs, seventy drawn figures, and a bibliography.

​A selection of 2,200 coins from the total collection of 11,000 coins at the AUB Archaeological Museum is thoroughly catalogued here following the classification system of the British Museum, with photographs and thirty-two plates. The coins are indexed both by emperor and by type.

The French expedition to the ancient Phoenician city of Byblos (modern Jbeil) from 1928 to 1932 discovered a group of nine texts carved in stone or stamped on copper plates. It was clear that the writing system was syllabic, not alphabetic, and was very closely related to Egyptian hieroglyphic characters. This volume presents a deciphering of eight of those texts, together with philological treatment of the language, and places the language into the context of ancient historical and social processes. The language of the texts appears from internal evidence to be a very archaic West Semitic, and antedates the separation of the Arabic and Canaanite branches of the Semitic language family. Evidence from the texts supports the conclusion that Arabic originated in the coastal regions of the Eastern Mediterranean, known in the classical period as Phoenicia and Palestine, in the Early Bronze Age before 2000 BC. The writing system is shown to be the missing link between Egyptian and the late Canaanite alphabet.