Space Science and the Arab World: Astronauts, Observatories and Nationalism in the Middle East

273 Pages·2018·6.741 MB·English

by  Jörg Matthias Determann

Jo¨rgMatthiasDetermannisAssistantProfessorofHistoryatVirginia
Commonwealth University in Qatar. He is the author of Researching
Biology and Evolution in the Gulf States: Networks of Science in the
Middle East and Historiography in Saudi Arabia: Globalization and the
StateintheMiddleEast(bothI.B.Tauris).HehasbeenaPostdoctoral
Fellow at Zentrum Moderner Orient and Freie Universita¨t Berlin,
and holds a PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS),UniversityofLondon.
‘Exceptionallywellresearched,drawingonacopiousarrayofarchival
andoriginalsourcematerialinmultiplelanguages,thisbookmakesa
significant contribution to the modern history of astronomy in the
MiddleEast.’
JamesClayMoltz,Professor,
NavalPostgraduateSchool,Monterey,California
‘Jo¨rgMatthiasDetermann’sbookshowsthatspacesciencehasbeena
formative element of Middle East modernity. States as disparate as
Nasser’s Egypt and the Gulf monarchy of Qatar have looked to
the stars to further nationalist as well as internationalist agendas,
mobilising the notions of “golden age” and “renaissance” in the
service of a distinctively modern politics of science, industry, and
military technology. Space Science and the Arab World is an exciting
addition to the emerging genre of scholarship on science in the
modernMiddleEast.’
DanielAStolz,VisitingAssistantProfessor,
NorthwesternUniversity
SPACE SCIENCE
AND THE ARAB
WORLD
Astronauts, Observatories and
Nationalism in the Middle East
JO¨RG MATTHIAS DETERMANN
Publishedin2018by
I.B.Tauris&Co.Ltd
London•NewYork
www.ibtauris.com
Copyrightq2018Jo¨rgMatthiasDetermann
TherightofJo¨rgMatthiasDetermanntobeidentifiedastheauthor
ofthisworkhasbeenassertedbytheauthorinaccordancewiththe
Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988.
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsinareview,thisbook,
oranypartthereof,maynotbereproduced,storedinorintroduced
intoaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,
electronic,mechanical,photocopying,recordingorotherwise,
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Everyattempthasbeenmadetogainpermissionfortheuseoftheimages
inthisbook.Anyomissionswillberectifiedinfutureeditions.
Referencestowebsiteswerecorrectatthetimeofwriting.
LibraryofModernMiddleEastStudies215
ISBN:9781788310147
eISBN:9781786723529
ePDF:9781786733528
AfullCIPrecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
AfullCIPrecordisavailablefromtheLibraryofCongress
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ToJeanne,mystar

Contents
ListofFigures ix
Abbreviations x
Acknowledgements xi
1. THEARABCONQUESTOFSPACE 1
Arabworldscience 4
ChaptersinArabspaceexploration 13
2. NATIONALISMANDCOSMOPOLITANISM 17
Statesandstars 18
SpaceArabism 26
ModernIslamicastronomy 30
Crossingthecosmos 35
3. EASTCOASTANDNEAREASTCOLLEGES 49
Collegiateconnections 52
Eclipseexpeditions 62
ResearchingastronomyanditsArabhistory 73
4. STARSOFSCIENCE 83
Hotspots 86
Geologyofthemoon 93
Developingdeserts 99
Koftagate 111
viii Space Science and the Arab World
5. SPACEPIONEERS 116
Artificialmoons 119
Multiculturalisminspace 126
Oneplanet 133
Cosmonauts’cosmopolitanism 141
6. THEARABS’FINALFRONTIER 148
Hope 155
Globalnetworks 164
Epilogue:SpaceheritageandtheArabworld 169
Notes 175
Bibliography 198
Index 238
List of Figures
Figure3.1IllustrationofEarthmovingaroundthesunin
thefirstvolumeofAl-Muktataf 59
Figure4.1 FaroukEl-BazatMissionControl,Houston,
Texas,in1969(courtesyofFaroukEl-Baz) 96
Figure4.2Anwarel-Sadat(left)andFaroukEl-Bazin1978
(courtesyofFaroukEl-Baz) 103
Figure4.3FaroukEl-Baz(thirdfromtheright)and
colleaguesmeetingwithrepresentativesfromtheKuwait
FoundationfortheAdvancementofSciencesinBoston
in1992(courtesyofFaroukEl-Baz) 109
Figure5.1CrewofSTS-51-G,withtheSaudiandFrench
astronautsontherightofthesecondrow(NASAimage
inthepublicdomain) 129
Figure6.1StampsondisplayintheSheikhSaeed
AlMaktoumHouse,Dubai,2016(courtesyoftheauthor) 157
Figure6.2MohammedbinRashidSpaceCentre,Dubai,
2016(courtesyoftheauthor) 160
Figure6.3TheauthorontheStarWarssetinTunisia
in2006(courtesyoftheauthor) 171