Sources on learning about Karak
Since I shall be leaving for the weekend to my beloved and most precious Karak, I decided to dedicate this post to point out just two of the ways you can learn more about this magnificent city - a place that has always been, and is, a fountain of history, strong-willed children of Jordan, and beauty.
My first source is a study by Peter Gubser, called Politics and Change in Al-Karak, Jordan: A Study of a Small Arab Town and its District. This is a great reference book for anyone interested in learning about Karak’s tribal history, economics, and way of life. The book is also available in Arabic, translated by Khaled Al Karaki, and it is excellent. It has maps of Karak’s villages, tables of Karak’s tribes and families (including mine), and documentation of major events in the lives of Karak’s people.
I bought the Arabic version of the book tonight and I got instantly hooked to reading it, partly because it treats essential aspects of the general forming of my city of origin, and partly because my own family’s past alliances and private history are recounted in it. If you don’t waste any time, you can buy this book at the Amman Book Fair from the Greater Amman Municipality stand.
The second source is not as well-trimmed as the first but I shall cite it nonetheless. It is a website (http://www.alkarak.net), and a personal effort from a certain I. Madanat to ” preserve a place for Al Karak on the web “. That very motivation is impressive to me, therefore I decided to expose it a little more. The website is not precisely the most sophisticated out there but it does what it can to provide links to pictures, news, and archaeology (using the Virtual Karak Resources Project which I had covered previously).
Interestingly, AlKarak.net has a blog section, established by I. Madanat. Unfortunately, there is only one post in this section but it is quite to the point:
“Alright, Yo all karakies lets get our Blog working…”
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September 15th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Here in Arizona there’s a man who came from Kerak and established a Taxicab office, called it Karak Taxi ! Tage3
September 19th, 2006 at 10:57 am
If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion about how to improve The Box(tm), it would be that you should endeavor to include even more photography. Not only are your pictures frequently breathtaking, but they are extremely fascinating and imagination-stirring for those of us who happen to live on the opposite end of the globe.