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Sharjah Book Fair: Arab, Foreign Publishers Gather to 'Spread the Word'

Sharjah ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad al-Qassimi at the American University of Sharjah (AFP)
Sharjah ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad al-Qassimi at the American University of Sharjah (AFP)
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Sharjah Book Fair: Arab, Foreign Publishers Gather to 'Spread the Word'

Sharjah ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad al-Qassimi at the American University of Sharjah (AFP)
Sharjah ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammad al-Qassimi at the American University of Sharjah (AFP)

As the Arab League Summit started and ended in Algeria earlier this week, Sheikh Sultan Al-Qasimi, ruler of Sharjah, has launched the 41st edition of the largest book fair in the world at Expo Center Sharjah, few meters from the first elementary school established in 1961, in the Kalba region. The school was named after the Algerian resistance symbol, Djamila Bouhired, who fought against the French colonization of her country.

The Sharjah International Book Fair (SIBF) has returned after the two-year pandemic, in full capacity under the theme “Spread the Word”, hosting 2,213 publishers from 95 countries, including 1,298 Arab and 915 foreign publishers.

This year’s edition of SIBF has seen a remarkable participation from Syria. Most Syrian publishers have attended the event, which according to one publisher, is an opportunity and a window to engage with the Arab region and the world, amidst the awful war and internal conflicts their country has seen in the past 10 year. The publisher believes that Syrians have always been among the best actors in the Arabic and cultural field.

SIBF has launched 36 new volumes of the Historical Corpus of the Arabic Language, which document nine Arabic letters. As described by the Ruler of Sharjah, this corpus is not like other dictionaries that explain and define the meanings of Arabic words, but a “record of this nation, its history, poetry, anecdotes, and proverbs, starting with the old, historic inscriptions, to all the Arabic historic phases, and the modern era.”

“The Sharjah International Book Fair has a history that spans 40 over years, during which it has accomplished myriads of achievements,” said Ahmed bin Rakkad Al Ameri, the chairman of Sharjah Book Authority (SBA).

“Publishing is like no other industry. It’s based on continuous connections and regular meetings that contribute to establishing sturdy bridges,” he added, noting that the emirate hosted 1,041 publisher and literary agents in the Publishers Conference.

SIBF also hosts 150 esteemed Arab and foreign writers, intellectuals, innovators from 15 countries who will partake in 1,500 diverse events and panels, including 200 cultural activities, workshops, and speeches that highlight their creative experiences in all kinds of writing.

The fair has also dedicated a section for rare Arabic and Islamic manuscripts dating to hundreds of years, including some from the 7th century of Hijra, in collaboration with Italy’s Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and Biblioteca Ambrosiana, in line with hosting Italy as SIBF’s guest of honor this year.

Some of the published manuscripts feature verses from the Holy Quran that were copied during the 15th and 16th centuries AD, some are engraved and gilded, while others have more simple designs. Among the manuscripts is also a 17th century cosmology manuscript titled ‘Miracles of Existence’.

Another work on display is part of Firuzabadi’s Al Qamus Al Muhit — one of the most acclaimed Arabic dictionaries from 828 of Hijra. A 13th century manuscript by Makki bin Abi Talib Al Quaisi on the sciences of the Quran titled “Uncovering the Faces of the Seven Readings” from 678 of Hijra, which is the oldest manuscript at the exhibition.

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Varieties

In Beirut, a Photographer's Frozen Moments Slow Down Time and Allow the Contemplation of Destruction

A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, October 22, 2024. (AP Photo/ Bilal Hussein)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, October 22, 2024. (AP Photo/ Bilal Hussein)
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In Beirut, a Photographer's Frozen Moments Slow Down Time and Allow the Contemplation of Destruction

A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, October 22, 2024. (AP Photo/ Bilal Hussein)
A bomb dropped from an Israeli jet hits a building in Ghobeiri, Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, October 22, 2024. (AP Photo/ Bilal Hussein)

We watch video after video, consuming the world on our handheld devices in bites of two minutes, one minute, 30 seconds, 15. We turn to moving pictures — “film” — because it comes the closest to approximating the world that we see and experience. This is, after all, 2024, and video in our pocket — ours, others', everyone's — has become our birthright.
But sometimes — even in this era of live video always rolling, always recording, always capturing — sometimes the frozen moment can enter the eye like nothing else. And in the process, it can tell a larger story that echoes long after the moment was captured. That's what happened this past week in Beirut, through the camera lens of Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein and the photographs he captured.
When Hussein set up his camera outside an evacuated Beirut apartment building Tuesday after Israel announced it would be targeted as part of military operations against Hezbollah, he had one goal in mind — only one. "All I thought of," he says, “was photographing the missile while it was coming down.”
He found a safe spot. He ensured a good angle. He wasn't stressed, he said; like many photographers who work in such environments, he had been in situations like this one before. He was ready.
When the attack came — a bomb, not a missile in the end — Hussein swung into action. And, unsurprisingly for a professional who has been doing this work for two decades, he did exactly what he set out to do.
Time slowed down
The sequence of images he made bursts with the explosive energy of its subject matter.
In one frame, the bomb hangs there, a weird and obtrusive interloper in the scene. It is not yet noticed by anyone around it, ready to bring its destruction to a building that, in moments, will no longer exist. The building's balconies, a split-second from nonexistence, are devoid of people as the bomb finds its mark.
These are the kind of moments that video, rolling at the speed of life or even in slow motion, cannot capture in the same way. A photo holds us in the scene, stops time, invites a viewer to take the most chaotic of events and break it down, looking around and noticing things in a strangely silent way that actual life could not.
In another frame, one that happened micro moments after the first, the building is in the process of exploding. Let's repeat that for effect, since even as recently as a couple generations ago photographs like this were rare: in the process of exploding.
Pieces of building are shooting out in all directions, in high velocity — in real life. But in the image they are frozen, outward bound, hanging in space awaiting the next seconds of their dissolution — just like the bomb that displaced them was doing milliseconds before. And in that, a contemplation of the destruction — and the people it was visited upon — becomes possible.
Tech gives us new prisms to see the world
The technology to grab so many images in the course of little more than one second — and do it in such clarity and high resolution — is barely a generation old.
So to see these “stills,” as journalists call them, come together to paint a picture of an event is a combination of artistry, intrepidity and technology — an exercise in freezing time, and in giving people the opportunity to contemplate for minutes, even hours, what took place in mere seconds. This holds true for positive things that the camera captures — and for visitations of violence like this one as well.
Photography is random access. We, the viewers of it, choose how to see it, process it, digest it. We go backward and forward in time, at will. We control the pace and the speed at which dizzying images hurtle at us. And in that process, something unusual for this era emerges: a bit of time to think.
That, among many other things, is the enduring power of the still image in a moving-picture world — and the power of what Bilal Hussein captured on that clear, sunny day in Beirut.