In the 1970s, soaring oil prices provided huge revenues to oil producing Arab countries, which, together with private Arab companies and individuals, invested billions of dollars in the U.S. economy. The influx of Arab petodollars drew mixed reactions from Americans. Some feared that wealthy Arabs were “buying up America” and gaining control over the nation’s political, economic, educational, and cultural institutions. Others welcomed Arab investment as a boon to the U.S. economy and to global stability. Petrodollars also played a key role in Arab American history. Demeaning portrayals of oil-rich Arabs in media and government discourse—reaching a crescendo in the FBI’s “Abscam” sting opererations of 1978–1980—goaded Arab Americans to adopt more organized methods of combating anti-Arab stereotypes. Salim Yaqub draws on his book, Imperfect Strangers: Americans, Arabs, and U.S.–Middle East Relations in the 1970s, to explore the complex legacy of Arab petrodollars in American life.

In this talk I will present the ongoing research project "Colonialism inside out" a Sri Lankan-Dutch research project, which has been running since 2017. The project aims at historical life writing, by combing macro-data from 18th century parish and census registers with qualitative data from legal courts, notary offices and church councils. The project brings in view the local farmers, Muslim and chettiyar merchants and Indian ocean exiles and slaves who inhabited Colombo and its surroundings.

Dries Lyna is Assistant Professor in Cultural and Economic, Social & Demographic History and Cultural History, Radboud University, Netherlands. He was trained at the Centre for Urban History (University of Antwerp), and was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Duke University and the Getty Research Institute. In the past he has been a guest lecturer at the History Departments of the University of Antwerp (2006-2012) and the Free University of Brussels (2011-2012), as well as at the Institut d'Etudes Supérieures des Arts in Paris (2006-2012).

His current research interest lies in the socio-legal history of colonial cities, with a focus on eighteenth-century Sri Lanka. Among others he studies the social function of colonial courts in Colombo, Jaffna and Galle. In addition he is interested in the family life of former slaves in the suburbs of Colombo, as part of the project 'Life after Slavery: Setting the Research Agenda of Slave Histories in the Global Era, 1750-1900', a collaboration with the University of Glasgow of which he is project leader. In the past he published on creative economies, art markets and material culture in the Low Countries (late 17th -19th centuries).

In Kenya there exist a chain of women educators in religious knowledge amongst the Muslim community. Due to their level of Islamic knowledge, their instructional role has for a long time been restricted to the traditional chuo (Quranic schools) to teach the reading and memorization of the Quran to children. This demonstrates the extent to which Muslim women were denied opportunities to pursue higher Islamic learning beyond the “necessary” basics. Even reputable early Muslim scholars in Kenya, like Sheikh Al-Amin Ali Mazrui (d. 1947) and Sheikh Sayyid Ali Badawi (d. 1963) did not make efforts to recruit and encourage women to advance their knowledge in Islamic education. Despite to the initial setback, presently there is a section of Muslim women who have successfully advanced their religious training through various initiatives. Owing to their advanced education, these women have assumed different roles in disseminating the religious knowledge to the Muslim community in the country.