Arabia

"Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees Their medicinable gum."

"Th’ Arabian dew besmears My uncontrollèd brow"

"This Casket India’s glowing Gems unlocks, And all Arabia breathes from yonder Box."

"The phœnix fair which rich Arabia breeds,"

"In hideous conference sits the listening band, And start at each low wind, or wakeful sound; What though thy stay the pilgrim curseth oft, As all-benighted in Arabian wastes He hears the wilderness around him howl With roaming monsters,"

"For him the Rich Arabia sweats her Gum;"

"No Nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands:"

"And, where the charmer treads her magic toe, On English ground Arabian odours grow;"

"The wizard lights and demon play Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian!"

"With zebras striped, and sleek Arabians’ prance,"

"Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, ed. (1876–1879) Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. Vols. XXI–XXIII."

"What happened to us?" The question haunts us in the Arab and Muslim world. We repeat it like a mantra. You will hear it from Iran to Syria, from Saudi Arabia to Pakistan, and in my own country of Lebanon. For us, the past is a different country, one that is not mired in the horrors of sectarian killings; a more vibrant place, without the crushing intolerance of religious zealots and seemingly endless, amorphous wars. Though the past had coups and wars too, they were contained in time and space, and the future still held much promise. “What happened to us?” The question may not occur to those too young to remember a different world, or whose parents did not tell them of a youth spent reciting poetry in Peshawar, debating Marxism late into the night in the bars of Beirut, or riding bicycles to picnic on the banks of the Tigris River in Baghdad. The question may also surprise those in the West who assume that the extremism and the bloodletting of today were always the norm."