Tracking Sami Yusuf's move into the mainstream is key not only for understanding Sami Yusuf as an Islamic artist but also as a useful index for how Muslims see themselves as participants in Western modernity. Christian Pond asks, will they, as encouraged by Sami Yusuf, choose the path of Islamizing modernity? Or will they choose the more complicated path of modernizing Islam?

In the wake of controversy triggered by Super Star and Star Academy, some observers have hailed reality television as a harbinger of democracy in the Arab world. Marwan Kraidy looks at the political implications of a new and popular genre hitting Arab satellite television.

The long-anticipated English-language Al Jazeera International (AJI) is due to launch in the second quarter of 2006. TBS’s new senior editor Lawrence Pintak talked with AJI’s managing director Nigel Parsons, to find out about the hopes riding on the new channel as well as the challenges facing it. TBS: Let’s start with some basics. Why are …

In October 2005, more than 500 media development professionals from dozens of countries gathered in Amman, Jordan for the first summit of the Global Forum for Media Development, a new alliance of organizations involved in media training activities around the world.  The location of the gathering was significant: Jordan’s King …

Abstract This paper examines the commercial and cultural reasons the dubbing of American films and television programs, common throughout much of the world, remains non-existent in the Arab World. Despite a marked surge in the number of Arabic-language television stations in the last ten years, and much need for quality …

Every Ramadan is more or less the same. People are tired, traffic is bad. Every day at dusk, thankful families gather at home to break their day-long fast. And afterwards, they indulge in another holiday tradition: Ramadan soap operas. This year saw the usual glut of such entertainment, produced in …

Arabic language satellite television has over the past three years broadcast a number of excellent historical dramas set in late antiquity or in early Islamic periods.(1) These programs usually are first shown as part of the Ramadan line up, guaranteeing a large viewing audience.(2) One of the new aspects of …

The Road Not Traveled One of the most intriguing Arabic-language television dramas in recent years was The Road to Kabul (2004), which told the story of the Arab and Afghan mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Or rather tried to tell, since The Road to Kabul never made it past episode eight. The state of Qatar, …

Nearly everybody agrees that reality television in the Arab world has changed the way we, as viewers, relate to television. This programming genre has been the center of much debate ever since the first group of reality participants was locked up in a villa. These views can be divided in …

Parks, Lisa. Cultures in Orbit: Satellites and the Televisual. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005. Paperback. 256 pages. ISBN 0-8223-3497-6. $22.95 Reviewed by Lamees M. El Baghdady Cultures in Orbit is a critical paradigm of both television and cultural studies. Unlike previous research, which has focused mainly on direct satellite broadcasting and …