Khajistan Institutional Catalogue, Fall 2026

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American War Propaganda

Islamicate Judaica

Spanning the late nineteenth century to 2009, this selection brings together Jewish family papers, photographs, religious books and children’s publishing from Iran, Iraq, Central Asia, North Africa and Israel. It also includes political cartoons and writing about Jews and Israel from Istanbul, Cairo, Baghdad, Tunis, Pakistan and New York. Khajistan places these materials together to preserve accounts of work, worship, childhood and migration, and to examine how political publishing represented—and often distorted—Jewish life.

Provenance

Naji and Rosette’s Iraqi family papers were received from a member of their family. The correspondence, engagement deed and related documents are presented together in this catalogue.

The Qassab family photographs were sourced from a landlord and collector in Tel Aviv.

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Family groups are kept together under the decade of their earliest piece.

Jump to item 1–49

Items dated 1887–1939

1. Millet-i Israiliye

Ebüzziya Tevfik | Istanbul: Matbaa-i Ebüzziya | Ottoman Turkish | 1305 (1887 to 1888), first edition

An early example of antisemitic writing in Ottoman Turkish, presented as a history of the Jewish people.

Historical context

Ebüzziya Tevfik wrote within an Ottoman debate about religion, citizenship and commerce while drawing on European anti-Jewish stereotypes. His account combines hostile generalizations about Jewish economic life with passages praising Jewish loyalty, and with a conversation with a French Jewish bookseller in Istanbul that, in a 2019 study’s reading, embarrassed him about his own religious framing. The same study places the book’s European influences alongside older religious hostility and economic rivalry within Ottoman society.

Sources: Osman Özkul, Nadir Çomak and Hilal Uzun, “Millet-i İsrailiye,” Bulletin of Palestine Studies 5 (2019), pp. 59–80.

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Millet-i Israiliye

2. Bukhara travel permit

Bukhara and Constantinople | Russian, with French endorsements | 1911 to 1912

A Russian-language permit for travel to Russia and abroad, issued in 1911, which names its holder as Jewish. Endorsements added in Bukhara and Constantinople, with revenue stamps and official seals, follow the document’s use through 1911 and 1912.

Historical context

The treaties of 1868 and 1873 granted the emir of Bukhara’s subjects rights to live and trade in Russia. This permit names its holder as Jewish and carries endorsements from Bukhara and Constantinople in 1911–1912.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Bukharan Jews”.

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Bukhara travel permit

3. Six portraits with Persian dedications, Ashgabat and Baku, 1928 to 1941

Ashgabat and Baku | Persian, with Cyrillic | 6 prints, 1928 to 1941

Small photographs of young men, some taken out of doors and some in the studio, one sitter in a cap and bow tie. Each back carries a Persian keepsake dedication. One was written at Ashgabat (Eshqabad) on 10 April 1928. Another dedication, in pencil, is dated 2 April 1929; above it a later note in violet ink reads 27/XII 1929 and “г. Баку”, Baku, writing the month in the Russian manner. A later one is dated Ordibehesht 1320, spring 1941, and signed with a name ending in -zadeh. From a Jewish family collection.

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Six portraits with Persian dedications, Ashgabat and Baku, 1928 to 1941Six portraits with Persian dedications, Ashgabat and Baku, 1928 to 1941

Qassab family photographs, c. 1929–1950s

4. Family group, couple and brothers, about 1929 to the 1930s

Iran, attributed | Persian dedications | 3 prints, about 1929 to the 1930s

The largest print shows about twelve people in a courtyard, among them an elderly bearded man and a woman in a chador. A studio portrait shows a couple, the man in a fedora, and a postcard portrait shows three brothers, the youngest in a sailor suit. One back carries a Persian dedication to a sister from Tavus, dated 26/12/9. The postcard has a dedication in red ink to a nephew or niece, with dates that write the month in Roman numerals, among them 3/XII 29, and a signature ending in -Ismailov. The name Tavus also appears in the 1936 dedication on one of the wedding portraits. From a Jewish family collection.

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Family group, couple and brothers, about 1929 to the 1930sFamily group, couple and brothers, about 1929 to the 1930s

5. Wedding and couple portraits, Iran and Casablanca

Iran and Morocco | Persian and French inscriptions | 5 prints, 1936 to the 1950s

Five portraits of brides and couples. In one wedding portrait a Star of David hangs on the wall behind the couple. A print on a postcard back carries a Persian dedication to Yaqub Qassab from a family that includes Tavus Khanum, dated 6 August 1936 with the month written in its European form. Another bears the stamp of Marcel Film, Brasserie Vox, Place de France, Casablanca, in French and Arabic, with a French address in pencil. Persian and Moroccan prints sit side by side in the group. From a Jewish family collection.

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Wedding and couple portraits, Iran and CasablancaWedding and couple portraits, Iran and Casablanca

6. Persian-inscribed family photographs, Tel Aviv, 1947

Tel Aviv | Persian dedication, Hebrew stamp | 7 prints, 1940s

Seven prints of a family and its friends, from a large seated group to two men walking in overcoats. The back of one carries a Persian keepsake dedication to Aqa Nasrollah Qassab and a companion, dated 6-1-47, with “Tel-Aviv” written in Latin letters and a Hebrew rubber stamp beside it. It was inscribed in Tel Aviv by Persian speakers. The inscription places the group in the later 1940s. The surname Qassab returns in the 1936 dedication on one of the wedding photographs (item 5).

Historical context

The Persian dedication was written in Tel Aviv in 1947, during the last full year of the British Mandate. In November, the United Nations proposed partition into Arab and Jewish states. Israel declared independence in May 1948.

Sources: United Nations, Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem, Part II (1947–1977).

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Persian-inscribed family photographs, Tel Aviv, 1947Persian-inscribed family photographs, Tel Aviv, 1947

7. Synagogue donation receipts and pledge coupons

Iran | Judeo-Persian and Hebrew, with Persian | 7 receipts and 4 pledge coupons, about 1930 to 1956

Seven printed receipts dated between about 1930 and 1956, and four undated pledge coupons, from the synagogues of Iran, which record what Jewish congregations in Isfahan and Tehran asked of their members and what the members gave. They are sold together as one collection. The earliest comes from the synagogue of Mulla Soleiman in Isfahan and is dated 25 Tevet in a year of the 5690s, which falls in January 1930 or, if a final letter has worn away, in January 1933. Three receipts of a Great Synagogue, printed with a Star of David between flowering branches, are dated by the Hebrew calendar to 1931 and 1932 and signed by Hakham Rahamim. One of them acknowledges a gift made for the honour of Simhat Torah. Two receipts of the synagogue at Darvazeh Shemiran in Tehran raised money for building the synagogue and its school. One is dated in the Hebrew year 5713 (1952 to 1953), and the other, on orange paper, carries the same printed notice on its reverse with the bank account into which gifts could be paid. A receipt from the synagogue on Shah Reza Street, south of Pol-e Chubi, is dated 1334 in the Persian calendar and 5716 in the Hebrew (1955 to 1956), and asks for help in building the synagogue and a kindergarten. Four coupons issued by the committee of the Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue show Moses holding the Tablets of the Law above the verse ki tidor neder, “when you make a vow”, from Deuteronomy. They are numbered by hand, two of them in sequence, and carry no date. The group includes Judeo-Persian in Hebrew letters alongside Hebrew religious formulae and Persian in Persian script. The illustrated Great Synagogue form and Darvazeh Shemiran building receipt contain Persian wording in Hebrew script. Donors’ names and sums were added by hand and often stamped. The receipts are folded and toned, with small tears and handling marks.

Historical context

Several receipts contain Persian written in Hebrew letters, known as Judeo-Persian, alongside Hebrew religious formulae. Under the Pahlavis, Jews gained wider access to schools and occupations while facing continuing prejudice. These congregations collected money for synagogues, a school and a kindergarten between 1930 and 1956.

Sources: Thamar E. Gindin, “Judeo-Persian Language,” Encyclopaedia Iranica; Orly R. Rahimiyan, “The Pahlavi Era,” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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Receipt of the Mulla Soleiman synagogue, Isfahan, 1930 or 1933Great Synagogue receipt with a Star of David, Nisan 1931Great Synagogue receipt for Simhat Torah, Tishri 1931Great Synagogue receipt, Tammuz 1932Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue building fund receipt, 1952 to 1953, front and reverseDarvazeh Shemiran synagogue receipt on orange paper, detail and reverseReceipt for the synagogue and kindergarten on Shah Reza Street, 1955 to 1956Moses coupon of the Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue committee, denomination 10Moses coupon of the Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue committee, no. 287Moses coupon of the Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue committee, no. 451Moses coupon of the Darvazeh Shemiran synagogue committee, no. 452, front and reverse

Items dated 1940–1949

Amar family photographs and travel papers, 1940s–1959

8. Family photograph album, Morocco (attributed)

Morocco and Gibraltar, attributed | lacquer album | about 50 prints, 1940s to 1950s

A black lacquer album with a painted cover of Mount Fuji and a pagoda, filled with snapshots and small studio prints of one family. The openings photographed hold about 50 prints, and the album is offered as a single collection. It came to us with the Israeli laissez-passer issued at Gibraltar in 1959 to David and Habiba Amar, both born in Marrakech.

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Family photograph album, Morocco (attributed)Family photograph album, Morocco (attributed)

9. David and Habiba Amar: Israeli laissez-passer

Gibraltar | French and Hebrew | 30 October 1959

State of Israel laissez-passer no. 10409, issued at Gibraltar on 30 October 1959 for David Amar and his wife Habiba to travel to Israel. Their photographs sit beside a consular revenue stamp and the issuing seal. The nationality field reads “Indéterminée”.

Historical context

Morocco barred Jewish emigration after the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Jews who left did so illegally, often with smugglers, on boats between Alhucemas and Gibraltar, where Zionist underground representatives prepared their papers for the passage to Marseille and on to Israel. Contemporary reporting in July 1959 describes arrests of Jews attempting to reach Spanish-controlled Ceuta. Issuance of the Amars’ Israeli travel document in Gibraltar fits this route. The document does not record how they reached Gibraltar or why their nationality was entered as “Indéterminée”.

Sources: Rachel Delia Benaim and Rebecca Taylor, “The untold story of Gibraltar’s refugees,” Jewish Renaissance (July 2017); Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 30 July 1959.

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David and Habiba Amar: Israeli laissez-passer

10. Ha-Safah ha-Ivrit: Hebrew reading and writing

Casablanca | Hebrew and French | undated, about 1940

Part one of a Hebrew reading-and-writing textbook. The title page names Joseph Lugassy’s bookshop at 138 Rue des Synagogues, Casablanca. Alphabet exercises give way to short illustrated reading lessons.

Historical context

The estimated date, about 1940, falls within Morocco’s French protectorate period, 1912–1956. Joseph Lugassy’s Casablanca bookshop sold a Hebrew primer with French title-page information.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Morocco.

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Ha-Safah ha-Ivrit: Hebrew reading and writingHa-Safah ha-Ivrit: Hebrew reading and writing

11. On the Right and on the Left

Yosef Bass | Tel Aviv: Sikkot | Hebrew | 1942

Cartoons drawn between 1939 and 1941 on wartime politics and public life in Mandatory Palestine. The Hebrew title is Al yamin ve-al smol. It was Yosef Bass’s first book, published by Sikkot.

Historical context

Britain’s 1939 White Paper restricted Jewish immigration and land acquisition in Palestine. Bass drew these cartoons between 1939 and 1941, during the first years of the Second World War, and published them under the British Mandate in 1942.

Sources: Yad Vashem, “White Paper of 1939”.

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On the Right and on the Left

12. Civil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family

Iran | Persian | 1943 to 1953

A civil marriage certificate, or aqdnameh, kept together with the identity papers of the family it concerns. Under the Marriage Law of 1931 every marriage in Iran had to be entered at an official registry, and these papers record one such entry. The cover belongs to Official Marriage Registry Office No. 12, which answered to the Ministry of Justice and its General Department for the Registration of Deeds and Property. It is printed with the lion-and-sun emblem and the imprint of the Shahab press, a line in the margin dates the form to 1331 (1952), and two revenue stamps of the Imperial Government of Iran are fixed to it and cancelled. The identity booklet holds the marriage itself. On its page for the summary of marriage the husband is entered as Nesim (Nissim), born in 1304 (1925 to 1926), and the wife as Zinat. The marriage is marked as permanent and entered in the register under No. 346, in a year written 1329 (1950 to 1951) that can also be read as 1319. The pages left for divorce are blank. A table of children enters a son born on 18 Esfand 1321, about 9 March 1943, and his identity card, No. 594, was issued a few days later in the name of his father Nesim. The birth page of the booklet has faded, though the year 1310 (1931 to 1932) can still be read twice in its margin. The papers are in Persian throughout and carry no Hebrew, and they hold neither a rabbi's signature nor the text of a religious ketubah. Their attribution to a Jewish family rests on the name Nesim, long in use among Persian Jews, and on the family from whom the papers came. The handwriting is faint in places. Folded and toned, with stains and small losses at the edges.

Historical context

Iran’s Marriage Act of 1931 made registration in state offices compulsory. This family kept its civil marriage record with its identity papers. The Jewish attribution comes from the family source; several handwritten dates are faint or ambiguous.

Sources: Akbar Aghajanian, “Divorce iv. In Modern Persia”, Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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Civil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family: marriage certificate cover from Registry Office No. 12 with the identity bookletCivil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family: marriage and divorce summary pages, the marriage entry filled inCivil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family: table of children with a son born in 1321Civil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family: identity card No. 594 with the lion-and-sun emblemCivil marriage certificate and identity papers of a Persian Jewish family: birth summary page of the identity booklet

13. Nasrullahoff letters, 1944 to 1945

Iran and Jerusalem | English and Persian | 1944 to 1945

Papers sent to Farajullah Nasrullahoff in the Geulah quarter of Jerusalem during the Second World War. A telegram from Tehran, stamped in Jerusalem in 1944, reports on parcels of cotton tricot and an order for shoes. An air letter addressed to him in English came by way of Baghdad marked “Iranian Language”, and was opened by the censor and sealed again. With them is a handwritten letter in Persian. The papers are folded and worn.

Historical context

These letters passed between Iran and Jerusalem in 1944–1945, during the Holocaust and Britain’s restrictions on Jewish immigration to Palestine. The correspondence concerns cotton tricot, shoes and other merchandise; one air letter was opened and resealed by a censor.

Sources: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Refugees”.

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Telegram from Tehran to Jerusalem, 1944Censored air letter to JerusalemHandwritten letter in Persian

14. Laughter and Tears (Tsehok ve-Dema)

Yehoshua Adri | Jerusalem: Azriel Press | Hebrew | 1945

A collection of political cartoons by Yehoshua Adri, printed in Jerusalem in 1945. Cartoons dated 1939–1945 address Nazi Germany, concentration camps, refugees and British policy in Palestine. A Passover 1945 drawing takes the form of a Haggadah. Bound in blue cloth with the artist’s name and the Hebrew title stamped in gilt.

Rare wartime edition.

Historical context

Adri worked in the Revisionist Zionist press. His cartoons attacked British rule and rival parties, while his international satire targeted European dictatorships. The Jabotinsky Institute records Laughter and Tears as a 1945 Jerusalem printing by Azriel Press. The book includes cartoons of concentration-camp inmates and Jewish refugees drawn during the war.

Sources: Jabotinsky Institute, exhibition of Yehoshua Adri’s books.

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Laughter and Tears (Tsehok ve-Dema)Laughter and Tears (Tsehok ve-Dema)

15. Sefer Hag ha-Asif

Djerba | Hebrew and Judeo-Arabic | c. 1945–1946 (5706)

A festival booklet for Sukkot, with rules in Judeo-Arabic, the kiddush, eruv tavshilin and the processions of Simhat Torah. The title page names David Idan and the Idan, Cohen and Tzaban press. An illustrated page prints Hatikvah above the Sukkot rules.

Historical context

Dov Noy’s bibliography of Tunisian Jewish customs records Hag ha-Asif, with these Sukkot and Simhat Torah contents, as a Djerba printing of Hebrew year 5706 (1945–1946). This supports the approximate date assigned here.

Sources: Dov Noy, “Selected Bibliography,” section on customs and folk beliefs, Project Ben-Yehuda.

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Sefer Hag ha-AsifSefer Hag ha-Asif

16. Keshet: Shnaton li-Yeladim

L. Avital and N. Melamed, editors; L. Grundig and I. Herschkowitz, illustrators | Masada | Hebrew | fifth edition, 5708 (1947 to 1948)

A children’s annual arranged around the Hebrew calendar, with stories and songs beside illustrations and activities. The title page names Lea Grundig and I. Herschkowitz as its illustrators and gives the fifth edition, published by Masada in 5708 (1947 to 1948).

Historical context

The Hebrew year 5708 ran through 1947–1948, spanning the final months of the British Mandate and Israel’s establishment in May 1948. The printed year does not give a precise publication date.

Sources: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and the Establishment of the State of Israel.

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Keshet: Iton La-Yeladim

17. Moroccan family passport, Marrakech, 1949

Marrakech | French | 1949

A passport of the French Protectorate in Morocco, no. 49851, issued at Marrakech in 1949 to Mme Zrihen, née Torjman. It was made out for her to travel with five children born between 1935 and 1944. Small photographs of four of the children are pasted beside her own portrait with a small child, under violet stamps. The cover is worn and stained.

Historical context

France administered its Moroccan protectorate from 1912 until independence in 1956. This passport was issued in Marrakech in 1949 for a mother travelling with five children.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Morocco.

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Passport pages with the photographs of a mother and her childrenPassport cover, French Protectorate in MoroccoPassport description page

18. Jewish Missionary Magazine

New York Jewish Evangelization Society | New York | English | 5 issues, 1949

Five issues of a Christian missionary periodical devoted to evangelism among Jews, March to July-August 1949 (vol. 29, nos. 292 to 296). The illustrated cover shown is the March issue.

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Jewish Missionary Magazine

Items dated 1950–1959

Naji and Rosette family papers, 1950s–1967

19. Naji’s Iraqi family papers

Iraq | Arabic and English | 1950s and 1960s

Papers of Naji, a pharmaceutical chemist, from the same family as the 1960 letter and the 1954 engagement deed in this catalogue. Green cards of the association of medical professions in Iraq carry his photograph and give his calling as Ph.C. A civil register booklet is made out in his name with a revenue stamp and entries in red ink. Pink nationality booklets and a certificate folder of the Republic of Iraq come with them.

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Medical professions card with Naji’s photographCivil register booklet with a revenue stampIraqi nationality booklet, cover

20. Engagement deed of Naji and Rosette, 1954

Iraq | Arabic | 12 August 1954

An engagement deed in Arabic headed sanad khutubah, dated 12 August 1954. The groom’s photograph is pasted at the head and signed across with the same date. The match was arranged through a maternal uncle as go-between, and the deed is addressed to the heads of the bride’s family. It names Rosette as the bride and closes with a signature and a violet thumbprint. The sheet is folded, with light soiling.

From the papers of Naji and Rosette.

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Engagement deed with the groom’s photograph, 1954

21. Naji’s letter to Rosette, 1960

Iraq | English | 29 April 1960

A letter in English from Naji to his wife Rosette, dated 29 April 1960 and written in blue ink on pale green paper. He tells her that he reached Basra safely that afternoon by Iraqi Airways and asks her to forget a quarrel of the Friday before. He sends kisses to the children, Golda, Ketty, Lilly and the baby Abdullah, and signs it “Your loving husband Naji”. The letter was exhibited in Spasial Program by Khajistan at SculptureCenter, New York, in 2025.

Received from a member of Naji and Rosette’s family.

Historical context

Most Iraqi Jews had emigrated by 1951. Nine years later, Naji wrote to Rosette from Basra, where he had arrived that day by air, about a recent quarrel and their children.

Sources: Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, “The Farhud,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Letter from Naji to Rosette, 1960

22. Children’s prescription, Baghdad, 1967

Baghdad | Arabic and English | 25 December 1967

A prescription from Dr Abdul Karim Jamil, a doctor for children’s diseases in Baghdad, written on 25 December 1967 for a child named Katrine. It comes from the papers of Naji’s family.

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Prescription from a Baghdad children’s doctor, 1967

23. Youth for Settlement Strongholds

Chaim Shur, editor | Jerusalem: Zionist Organization; printed in Tel Aviv by Lion the Printer | English | 1950 | 96 pages

Readings and group activities for a Keren Hayesod youth settlement campaign, issued by the Youth and Halutz Department of the Zionist Organization.

Historical context

Keren Hayesod was founded in 1920 to raise funds for the Zionist movement, and later financed immigration and settlement in Israel. This 1950 booklet supplied readings and activities for its youth settlement campaign.

Sources: Keren Hayesod, institutional history.

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Youth for Settlement Strongholds

24. The Arab War Against Israel

Alexander Dothan | Tel Aviv: N. Tverski | Hebrew, English and Arabic | 1950 | XVI, 152 pages

A documentary album on the 1948 war that sets photographs and maps beside press cuttings and cartoons, with commentary in translation. No imprint appears in this copy; library records give Tel Aviv, N. Tverski, 1950.

Historical context

The 1948 war accompanied Israel’s establishment; over half of Palestine’s Arab population fled or were expelled, and the refugees numbered 726,000 by the end of 1949. Published in 1950, Dothan’s album assembled photographs, maps, press extracts and cartoons into an account of the war.

Sources: United Nations, Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem, Part II (1947–1977).

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The Arab War Against Israel

25. Iranian laissez-passer issued to a Baghdad-born traveller, with Israeli border stamp

Iran and Israel | Persian, French and Hebrew | 1951

An Iranian police travel document issued in Tehran, with the holder’s portrait and personal description under official stamps. It records the holder’s birthplace as Baghdad. The printed French and Persian conditions state that this document is not valid for return to Iran. A Mehrabad airport exit stamp is dated 27 Tir 1330 (18 July 1951), and an Israeli frontier-control stamp is dated 19 July 1951.

Historical context

Iran became a transit point for Iraqi Jews travelling to Israel as persecution and restrictions on emigration drove departures from Iraq. This Baghdad-born traveller’s Tehran exit and Israeli entry stamps place the journey within that movement. The permit authorizes outward travel but cannot be used for readmission to Iran.

Sources: David Menashri and Trita Parsi, “Israel: Relations with Iran,” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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Iranian laissez-passer issued to a Baghdad-born traveller, with Israeli border stampIranian laissez-passer issued to a Baghdad-born traveller, with Israeli border stamp

26. Those Were the Days

Yosef Bass | Tel Aviv | Hebrew, English and French | 1952

Political cartoons of the first years of Israel, from the war to the years of austerity and mass immigration. The Hebrew title is Hayu zmanim. Published by Matzpen.

Historical context

Israel’s early years brought large-scale immigration following the Holocaust and the postwar refugee crisis. Bass’s 1952 cartoons take up immigration, austerity and the everyday administration of the new state.

Sources: US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Holocaust Survivors and the Establishment of the State of Israel.

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Those Were the Days

27. Birthday card with two portraits, 1953 to 1954

Place not recorded | Arabic | 1 card with 2 mounted photographs, 1953 to 1954

A folding printed greeting card with a boy digging among mushrooms on its cover, into which two small studio portraits have been mounted. One shows an older man with a bearded younger man and is inscribed in green ink 25-8-953, and the other shows a young man in a suit, inscribed 25-12-953. Inside, a dedication in the same green ink wishes a boy named Dawud well on his ninth birthday and gives him the rule “treat people as you would have them treat you”. His cousin signed it on 2-1-54. The cover adds an Arabic proverb on sowing for those who come after. The dedication and the proverb are in Arabic, and the card came from an Iranian Jewish family collection.

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Birthday card with two portraits, 1953 to 1954Birthday card with two portraits, 1953 to 1954

28. Su’ad Nasim’s school papers, Basra, 1955 to 1956

Basra | Arabic | 1955 to 1956

Papers of a schoolgirl in Basra. Her admission card for the public examinations of 1955 to 1956 at the intermediate level was issued by the intermediate school of the Presentation Sisters in the province of Basra, and carries her photograph with the school stamp and a revenue stamp. With it is a sheet of her marks.

The school papers do not independently establish the pupil’s religion; the Jewish attribution comes from the family source.

Historical context

Most Iraqi Jews had emigrated by 1951. Su’ad Nasim’s papers date from 1955–1956, when she attended the Presentation Sisters’ intermediate school in Basra. The family source identifies her as Jewish.

Sources: Esther Meir-Glitzenstein, “The Farhud,” US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

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Examination admission card with photograph, BasraSheet of marks

29. 500 Caricatures of Delegates of the 24th Zionist Congress

Yoel Buchwald | Tel Aviv: Letzte Nyess | Hebrew, Yiddish and English | 1956

An album of caricature portraits of congress delegates and other public figures, published by Letzte Nyess and printed by Hacarmel.

Historical context

The 24th Zionist Congress met in Jerusalem in 1956. Buchwald’s album gathers caricatures of its delegates and other public figures.

Sources: Jewish Public Library Archives, 24th Zionist Congress photograph, Jerusalem, 1956.

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500 Caricatures of Delegates of the 24th Zionist Congress

30. Maria Amar’s midwife certificate, 1957

Morocco | French and Arabic | 13 December 1957

A certificat de fin d’études from the Ministry of Public Health of the Kingdom of Morocco. It records that Mlle Maria Amar followed the course of the school of midwives in Marrakech and passed its final examination in 1957 for the brevet d’accoucheuse. It is dated at Rabat on 13 December 1957 and stamped by the ministry. The text is printed in French and Arabic inside a patterned border, and the sheet is folded, with creases and small tears.

The certificate does not independently establish the holder’s religion; the Jewish attribution comes from the family source. No link to the Amar family of items 8 and 9 is recorded.

Historical context

Morocco gained independence in 1956. The new kingdom’s Ministry of Public Health issued Maria Amar’s midwife certificate in December 1957, in French and Arabic.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Morocco.

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Midwife certificate of Maria Amar, 1957

31. Family snapshots with a Lalehzar studio stamp, Tehran

Tehran | Persian stamp | 9 prints, late 1950s to 1960s

Nine snapshots and small portraits. In one a man stands beside a finned American car of the late 1950s, and another shows a couple on a beach. A back carries the violet stamp of Foto Nasimian on Lalehzar Street in Tehran, below the Farhang theatre. The stamp places at least one print in Tehran, and the car and the clothes point to the late 1950s or the 1960s. From a Jewish family collection.

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Family snapshots with a Lalehzar studio stamp, TehranFamily snapshots with a Lalehzar studio stamp, Tehran

32. Diary of a Persian Jewish owner, kept in an Iqbal almanac

Tehran | Persian, with manuscript notes in Persian and Hebrew script | 1337 SH (1958 to 1959)

A pocket almanac for the Iranian year 1337, drawn up by Hajj Mohammad Hossein Eqbal from the calculations of Hajj Mesbah and sold from his shop on Shahabad Street in Tehran. It opens on a portrait of Mohammad Reza Shah and, further on, prints a directory of government telephone numbers running from the Imperial Court to the Army Staff. The owner wrote in both Persian and Hebrew script. Under 25 March a line in Persian that includes the word ebri, Hebrew, is written out again beneath it in Hebrew letters, and the pairing points to Judeo-Persian. Under 26 March a note in Hebrew cursive sits above Persian recording 17 Israeli lira sent. Other days carry Tehran addresses, among them Eskandari Street and Nezam ol-Molk, and the notes page lists goods such as shirts and socks. The printed year of the almanac is 1337 (1958 to 1959). String-sewn and toned, with staining and wear at the edges; the portrait leaf is creased.

Historical context

Many Iranian Jews entered new professions and businesses under Mohammad Reza Shah while maintaining Jewish religious and linguistic practices. This owner used a commercial Tehran almanac for addresses, goods and payments, writing in Persian and Hebrew script.

Sources: Orly R. Rahimiyan, “The Pahlavi Era,” Encyclopaedia Iranica; Thamar E. Gindin, “Judeo-Persian Language,” Encyclopaedia Iranica.

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Almanac title opening with a portrait of Mohammad Reza Shah PahlaviCalendar pages for 21 to 26 March 1958 with notes in Persian and Hebrew scriptNotes page with a handwritten list of goods beside a printed government telephone directory

33. In Short: Israel

Friedel Stern | Israel: Hod | Hebrew and English | 1958

A cartoon book by Friedel Stern that follows a tourist through the young state, mocking its bureaucracy and its manners in the first decade after independence. Stern was born in Leipzig in 1917 and settled in Palestine in 1936.

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In Short: Israel, coverIn Short: Israel, second view

Items dated 1960–1969

34. Alef-Bet

Avraham Broides; Eliezer Lehmann, illustrator | Jerusalem: Nir | Hebrew | no printed date; c. 1961, estimated

A Hebrew alphabet booklet illustrated with gardening, harvesting, farm machinery and holiday observance. The title page credits Eliezer Lehmann as illustrator. The back cover names Nir as publisher, Litografia Ziv as printer, and A. Pikovsky Ltd for the photo-offset plates.

Historical context

The gardener, hay worker and tractor driver connect learning Hebrew with work on the land. Oz Almog’s The Sabra (2000) describes the first generation born in the Zionist settlement in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s, educated in the ethos of the Zionist labor movement and the communal ideals of the kibbutz and moshav.

Sources: Oz Almog, The Sabra: The Creation of the New Jew (2000).

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Alef-Bet

35. Twelve Brothers

Anda Amir-Pinkerfeld; Zvi Berger, illustrator | Jerusalem: Jewish National Fund | Hebrew | 1961 to 1962

An illustrated Hebrew booklet that gives each of the twelve months of the Jewish calendar a human form. Amir-Pinkerfeld first published the text, rhymed monologues of the twelve months, in 1940; this is a later edition, published by the Jewish National Fund.

Historical context

The Jewish National Fund used children’s books and holiday ceremonies to connect the Jewish calendar with Zionist settlement. This Jewish National Fund edition of Amir-Pinkerfeld’s 1940 text appeared in 1961–1962.

Sources: National Library of Israel, JNF Bikkurim Poster.

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Twelve Brothers

36. Typed Persian letter, Tehran to Israel, 1963

Tehran | Persian | 1963

A business letter typed in Persian under the stamp of a Tehran merchant, with his post office box, and signed by hand. It is dated 9 Ordibehesht 1342 (29 April 1963) and was sent to a correspondent in Israel. The letter deals with commissions on goods.

Historical context

Iran and Israel maintained commercial ties under the shah. Several thousand Iranian Jews returned from Israel to Iran between 1953 and 1975. This Tehran merchant’s letter concerns commissions on goods in 1963.

Sources: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Persian Jews project: Iranian Jews.

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Typed Persian letter from Tehran, 1963

37. Family declarations bearing a Jewish Agency stamp

Tehran | Hebrew | 11 March 1965

Two executed copies of a declaration about a child in Ashkelon and his return to his parents in Iran. The certification carries the stamp of the Immigration Department of the Jewish Agency for Israel in Tehran, together with signatures and fingerprints.

Historical context

The Jewish Agency opened a Tehran branch in 1943. Thousands of Iranian Jews later returned to Iran from Israel. These 1965 declarations concern a boy in Ashkelon and his return to his parents in Iran.

Sources: Austrian Academy of Sciences, Persian Jews project: Iranian Jews.

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Family declarations bearing a Jewish Agency stamp

38. Souvenir from Israel: The Six Days in the Tents of Arabia

F. Maurüber | Haifa | Hebrew and English | 1967

Ten full-page caricatures of the Six-Day War. The English cover gives the artist as F. Maurüber, and the Hebrew cover and the signature on the drawings read Mauriber. The Hebrew cover reads Sheshet ha-yamim be-ohalei Arav, and the English side carries the title Souvenir from Israel.

Historical context

In June 1967, Israel defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria and occupied Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: The 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

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Souvenir from Israel: The Six Days in the Tents of Arabia

39. Israel in the Eyes of the Enemy

H. Raviv, editor | Tel Aviv | Hebrew with reproduced Arabic material | no date printed, about 1967

Cartoons selected from the Arab press and set within Hebrew political commentary. Edited by H. Raviv and printed by Photo-offset Carmel in Tel Aviv.

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Israel in the Eyes of the Enemy

40. The Victory in the Mirror of Caricature

Uri Sela, editor | Tel Aviv | Hebrew | 1967

Political caricatures of the Six-Day War, including drawings reproduced from Arabic publications.

Historical context

Israel occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, Sinai and the Golan Heights in June 1967. Sela’s album gathers cartoons about the war, including drawings reproduced from Arabic publications.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: The 1967 Arab-Israeli War.

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The Victory in the Mirror of Caricature

41. Israel Must Be Annihilated

Tel Aviv | Hebrew and English | booklet, 1967

A booklet issued by the Israeli army information office in July 1967, just after the Six-Day War, that reprints cartoons from Arab newspapers calling for the destruction of Israel. Its Hebrew title, Kav ha-Hashmadah shel Nasser, sets the material under the name of the Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.

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Israel Must Be Annihilated, coverIsrael Must Be Annihilated, second view

Items dated 1980–1989

42. Al-Ashbal (The Lion Cubs), two issues

Fatah youth movement | Tunis (Hammam-Lif) | Arabic | two issues, 1984: no. 2 (5 October 1984) and no. 4 (10 December 1984)

The children’s magazine of Fatah, made for the young members of its youth movement and founded in Damascus in 1969. These issues were published from Tunis, and the masthead gives a post office box at Hammam-Lif. Comics and poems sit beside illustrated maps of Palestine. The December cover hails the independent Palestinian decision, the watchword of the National Council that met in Amman in November 1984.

Historical context

The Palestine National Council met in Amman in November 1984. Its final statement affirmed independent Palestinian national decision-making, the slogan on Al-Ashbal’s December cover. These issues were published by Fatah’s youth movement from Tunis.

Sources: PalQuest, Palestine National Council, 17th Session: Final Statement, 29 November 1984.

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Al-Ashbal (The Lion Cubs), two issuesAl-Ashbal (The Lion Cubs), two issues

43. Muslim Brotherhood and Peace with Israel

Hasanayn Karrum | Cairo (Maadi): Nader Co. Printing & Publishing | Arabic | 1985

Hasanayn Karrum’s account of the Muslim Brotherhood and the question of peace with Israel, covering the years 1977 to 1981. The book carries the Egyptian deposit number 7318/1985 and was the first title of its publisher, Nader Co. of Maadi, Cairo.

Historical context

Sadat visited Jerusalem in 1977, the Camp David Accords were signed in September 1978, and Egypt and Israel concluded their peace treaty in March 1979. Karrum’s book covers the Muslim Brotherhood and the question of peace during 1977–1981.

Sources: US Department of State, Office of the Historian: Camp David Accords.

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44. We Draw Victory

Amer Rashad | Baghdad: Children’s Culture House, Ministry of Culture and Information | Arabic | 1986 | 36 pages

An Iraqi wartime propaganda coloring book by Amer Rashad, published by Children’s Culture House in 1986. The cover shows a child thrusting an Iraqi-flag pencil toward a caricatured cleric. Inside, a Star of David–marked figure and an Iranian cleric sit at a table dripping blood, above the caption “Arab blood”.

Historical context

Iraq’s Ministry of Culture and Information issued the book in 1986, during the Iran–Iraq War of 1980–1988.

Sources: International Committee of the Red Cross, Iran–Iraq War, 1980–1988.

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We Draw Victory

Items dated 1990–1999

Items dated 2000–2009

46. Aalmi Yahoodi Tanzeemain

Mufti Abu Lubaba Shah Mansoor | Urdu | 2009

A book on Jewish organizations around the world, published by Alfalah, and an example of right-wing Urdu religious-political writing about Jews.

Historical context

Mansoor links Jewish organizations, Freemasonry and Zionism within an antisemitic account of world politics. His preface assigns collective blame to Jews for events ranging from the French Revolution to the fall of the Ottoman caliphate, and presents world domination under the Dajjal—the deceiving figure of Islamic end-times tradition—as their goal.

Sources: Abu Lubaba Shah Mansoor, prefatory remarks to Aalmi Yahoodi Tanzeemain (archived copy); Rekhta, digitised Lucknow edition.

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Aalmi Yahoodi Tanzeemain

Undated and partly dated editions

47. Shabbat Shalom

Parkway Printing & Stationery | Hebrew and Persian | 1984 or later; funeral notice dated 3 December 1978

A Sabbath prayer booklet commemorating Isaac ben Abraham Cohen Fouladi, with his portrait and Persian memorial verse beside Hebrew liturgy. It reproduces a funeral notice for burial in Herzliya on 3 December 1978.

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Shabbat ShalomShabbat Shalom

48. Ten Commandments and Jewish prayers

Persian and Hebrew | undated

A religious handbook with the Ten Commandments on its cover. Its contents list ritual blessings and Sabbath prayers, with sections on the mezuzah and on the festivals of Hanukkah and Rosh Hashanah. Translations run throughout.

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Ten Commandments and Jewish prayersTen Commandments and Jewish prayers

49. The Book of Passover

Rabbi Mordechai Aqalar | Hebrew and Persian | posthumous compilation, after 1936; exact edition undated

A Passover Haggadah with translation and commentary by Rabbi Mordechai Aqalar, also known as Mulla Murad. The title page, which carries an English title, credits Bahram Aqalarpour with its compilation and arrangement. It was compiled after the rabbi’s death in 1936 and adds his biography and portraits, so this copy belongs to a later edition. No imprint appears in it.

Historical context

Mordechai Aqalar, also known as Mulla Murad, led Mashhad’s community of Jews who practised Judaism in secret. He moved to Jerusalem in 1927 and published a Judeo-Persian Haggadah in 1930. He died in 1936. This compilation’s posthumous biography and portraits place it after his death; the 1930 date of his earlier Haggadah does not date this edition.

Sources: Walter Joseph Fischel, “Aklar Mordecai ben Raphael,” Encyclopaedia Judaica.

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The Book of PassoverThe Book of Passover

Indus

Film posters, censor certificates and magazines from Bombay, Karachi and Lahore, with literary journals, religious publications and Iqbal’s Persian poetry.

Prices in US dollars. Shipping quoted separately.

More books and periodicals from the Middle World are in the Khajistan rare bookstore.

Jump to item 50–115

Film & Media Studies

Film magazines, posters, story booklets, television periodicals and censorship records.

50. Musavvir

Bombay | Urdu | 54 issues, 1935 to 1942

An Urdu weekly of film and the arts, printed in Bombay by Brij Mohan at the Taj Mahal Fine Art Litho Works and edited at different times by Dukhi Premnagri and Mirza Adib. The fifty-four issues run from November 1935 to the autumn of 1942, most of them from the last two years, and their covers carry painted and photographic portraits of the actors and actresses of the Bombay studios. The paper is brittle and the copies are in poor to very poor condition, with chipping and losses at the edges.

Historical context

Film journalism expanded alongside the Bombay studios in the 1930s. Urdu magazines connected cinema with poetry, fiction and debates about modern life; their writers often worked across print and film. Musavvir’s actor portraits belong to this growing culture of publicity and film reading.

Sources: Afroz Taj, “The Filmī-ʿIlmī Formula: Shama Magazine and the Urdu Cosmopolis,” Journal of Urdu Studies 1 (2020), 177–210.

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Musavvir cover with a painted portraitMusavvir cover with an actress in close-upMusavvir cover with a film still

51. Pakistani Film Posters

Pakistan | 6,615 posters, 1948 to 2018

6,615 posters for Pakistani films in Urdu and the regional languages, from collectors in Pakistan. Every poster has been digitised, and the collection ships from Istanbul.

Historical context

Posters were printed to advertise coming attractions and to publicise the actors and songs of each film, in Urdu and in regional languages including Punjabi, Pashto, Bengali and Saraiki.

Sources: Princeton University Library, Pakistani Film Ephemera Collection.

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52. filmindia

Bombay | English | 29 issues, 1950s

Twenty-nine issues of filmindia, Baburao Patel’s English-language Bombay film magazine, founded in 1935. Its pages combined film reviews, industry reporting and readers’ letters.

Historical context

filmindia was established in Bombay in 1935. It was first edited by D. N. Parker and B. B. Samant, and Baburao Patel took over at Parker’s invitation; through the 1940s and 1950s he held a powerful place in Indian film journalism.

Sources: Darshana Sreedhar Mini, “Filmindia and Its Publics: Magazine Culture, the Expert, and the Industry”, in Global Movie Magazine Networks, ed. Eric Hoyt and Kelley Conway (University of California Press, 2025), 37–56.

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filmindia cover with a portrait of an actressfilmindia cover with a full-length figurefilmindia cover for Devta

53. Urdu Film Stories

Pakistan | Urdu | 400 booklets, 1950s to 1970s

Four hundred Urdu film-story booklets from the Guddu Archive in Karachi. Titles are available on request.

Historical context

Film booklets, like posters, were printed to advertise coming attractions and to publicise the actors and songs of each film, in Urdu and in regional languages including Punjabi, Pashto, Bengali and Saraiki.

Sources: Princeton University Library, Pakistani Film Ephemera Collection.

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Urdu Film Stories, coverUrdu Film Stories, second view

56. Shama, New Delhi

New Delhi | Urdu | 27 issues, 1952–1995

The Urdu film monthly edited by Younus, Idrees and Ilyas Dehlvi and published by Younus Dehlvi in New Delhi. All twenty-seven issues are itemised.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Shama, New Delhi.

Historical context

Yusuf Dehlvi founded Shama in Delhi in 1939. The magazine combined film coverage with Urdu fiction and poetry, drawing on the close relationship between literary writing and cinema. Its mixture of cover portraits, stories and industry news helped sustain an Urdu reading public across the decades after Partition.

Sources: Afroz Taj, “The Filmī-ʿIlmī Formula: Shama Magazine and the Urdu Cosmopolis,” Journal of Urdu Studies 1 (2020), 177–210.

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Shama, New Delhi

57. Filmistan

Karachi | Urdu | 11 issues, 1957 to 1958

A Karachi film weekly edited by Hashmatullah. Eleven issues are offered; ten are itemised in the accompanying list.

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Filmistan, coverFilmistan, second view

58. Mother India

Bombay | English | 60 issues, 1960s

Sixty issues of Mother India, edited by Baburao Patel and published from Bombay by Sumati Publications. Patel carried his film-journalism career into political commentary and public affairs. Thirty-one issue dates are itemised in the accompanying list.

Historical context

Baburao Patel’s filmindia carried more and more political commentary, and an announcement asked readers for a new name because it “no longer deals film reviews and film industry exclusively”. Renamed Mother India, it became a political magazine; Hindu mythologicals such as the Ramayana appeared in its pages beside many anti-Muslim articles. After Patel’s death in 1982 his wife Sushila Rani ran it until it closed in 1985.

Sources: Darshana Sreedhar Mini, “Filmindia and Its Publics: Magazine Culture, the Expert, and the Industry”, in Global Movie Magazine Networks, ed. Eric Hoyt and Kelley Conway (University of California Press, 2025), 37–56.

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Mother India Diwali number with a portrait in a sariMother India cover for the film GrahastiMother India cover with a film still

59. Pakistani film censor certificates

Lahore, Rawalpindi, Dhaka and Islamabad | Urdu and Punjabi | 195 certificates, 1960 to 2013

One hundred and ninety-five film censor certificates from Pakistan, recording approval for public exhibition. The earliest were issued by the West Pakistan Film Censor Board under the Cinematograph Act of 1918. From 1963 the Central Board of Film Censors issued them from its branch offices in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Dhaka, and the later ones are the Islamabad Form C under the Motion Pictures Ordinance of 1979. The forms record titles, applicants, producers, languages, film gauges, lengths and reel counts, with classifications including U, A and G. Many are copies attested by the Board’s secretary or vice-chairman. About half date from the 1960s. 106 are for Urdu films and 87 for Punjabi; one is for a Pashto film and one for Jack the Giant Killer, the American film, passed in 1962.

Historical context

The Motion Pictures Ordinance of 3 September 1979 regulated film censorship and public exhibition under Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law. The later certificates in this collection record the operation of that system.

Sources: Pakistan Code, Motion Pictures Ordinance, 1979.

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Censor certificate for the Punjabi film Sala Sohra Te Jawai, Islamabad, 2011Attested censor certificate for the Urdu film Majboor, Lahore branch office, 1966 — original photograph

60. Eastern Film

Karachi | English | 58 issues, 1960–1973

Pakistan’s English-language film monthly, published by Eastern Film Publications in Karachi. The group includes one Urdu/English issue. Fifty-one copies were photographed and catalogued individually; seven are recorded on the inventory.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Eastern Film.

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Eastern Film

62. Adakaar

Lahore | Urdu | 38 issues, 1972 to 1975

Adakaar (The Actor), a weekly from Nai Zindagi Publications edited by Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, with an Azadi number among the issues.

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Adakaar, coverAdakaar, second view

63. Film TV & Sun

Karachi | English | 44 issues, 1972–1975

The weekly film-and-television supplement issued with the Karachi daily The Sun, directed by S. M. Ghayasuddin. All forty-four copies were photographed and catalogued. The group includes the Eid number of 5 November 1972 and one Urdu/English issue.

Historical context

Pakistan Television’s first broadcast was in 1964. The Sun’s Film TV & Sun supplement of 1972–1975 addressed cinema and television together, with weekly publication and an Eid number.

Sources: Associated Press of Pakistan, PTV’s sixtieth anniversary.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Film TV & Sun.

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Film TV & Sun

64. TV Times

Karachi | Urdu and English | 19 issues, 1983 to 1995

The Karachi television magazine, in its Urdu and English editions.

Historical context

Pakistan Television began broadcasting from Lahore in 1964. By the years covered here, television had its own Urdu and English magazine readership alongside the established film press.

Sources: Associated Press of Pakistan, PTV’s sixtieth anniversary.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of TV Times.

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TV Times, coverTV Times, second view

65. Filmfare

Bombay | English | 270 issues

Two hundred and seventy issues of Filmfare, the English-language film magazine that the Times of India group launched in Bombay in 1952. The magazine set its cover portraits and interviews beside reviews and studio news, and in 1954 it began the awards that still carry its name. The covers shown are Filmfare covers of the 1950s.

Historical context

Filmfare began its awards in 1954, with winners decided by a poll of its readers. The first ceremony was held on 21 March 1954 at the Metro Cinema in Bombay, with five categories; Best Actor went to Dilip Kumar for Daag, a film released in 1952.

Sources: Filmfare, history of the first Filmfare Awards.

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Filmfare, 1950s coverFilmfare, 1950s coverFilmfare, 1950s coverFilmfare, 1950s cover

66. Shama, Karachi

Karachi | Urdu | 15 issues

The Karachi edition edited and published by Qayam Dehlvi, distinct from Shama’s Lahore edition. Twelve issues are itemised in the inventory.

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Shama, Karachi

67. Hindi film posters

India and Pakistan | 1,000 posters for films of the 1940s–1980s

A collection acquired from Omar Ali Khan. These posters accompanied pirated VHS tapes of Indian films in Pakistan. Further details are available on request.

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Hindi film posters

Political History & Journalism

News magazines and political weeklies, from the 1950s through military rule and later parliamentary governments.

68. Lail-o-Nahar

Pakistan | Urdu | 121 issues, 1957 to 1978

A news weekly that passed through several editors, among them Ejaz Hassan Qureshi and Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami. Most of the issues date from the 1970s.

Historical context

Lail-o-Nahar began in 1957 under Progressive Papers Limited, with Faiz Ahmad Faiz as chief editor and Sibte Hasan among its first editors. Ayub Khan’s government took over Progressive Papers in 1959. A 1974 issue in the National Archives of Pakistan names Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami as editor.

Sources: Rekhta, Lail-o-Nahar, September 1957; National Archives of Pakistan, Dr Naeem Qureshi Collection, item 480; Revolutionary Papers, Lail-o-Nihar.

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Lail-o-Nahar, coverLail-o-Nahar, second view

69. Shihab

Pakistan | Urdu | 197 issues, 1960s

The weekly edited by Kausar Niazi in the 1960s, before he entered government as a minister under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto.

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Shihab, coverShihab, second view

70. Gujar Gazette

Lahore | Urdu | 163 issues, 1963 to 1985

A Lahore weekly edited by Malik Abdul Majeed and Hakeem Ghulam Muhammad. The issues for 1963 follow each other almost week by week.

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Gujar Gazette, coverGujar Gazette, second view

73. Zindagi

Lahore | Urdu | 154 issues, 1969 to 1979

The political weekly edited by Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, covering the Bhutto years and the martial law that followed in 1977.

Historical context

Zia-ul-Haq imposed martial law in July 1977. In 1978 the regime banned the opposition daily Musawwat; the journalists’ unions campaigned against the ban, and the campaign brought arrests and floggings. This weekly’s run extends across Bhutto’s government and its overthrow.

Sources: Pakistan Press Foundation, journalists’ protest and floggings of 1978; Pakistan Code, Motion Pictures Ordinance, 1979, preamble (Proclamation of 5 July 1977).

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Zindagi, coverZindagi, second view

74. Asia

Lahore | Urdu | 150 issues, 1969 to 1995

The weekly of Maktaba Asia in Lahore, whose editors included Chaudhary Ghulam Jelani, Safdar Chaudhary and Nasrullah Khan Aziz. The collection includes issues from 1969 through 1995.

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Asia, coverAsia, second view

76. Al-Fatah

Karachi | Urdu | 44 issues, 1970 to 1978

The Karachi weekly edited by Wahab Siddiqui, with issues from the war of 1971 and from the elections and martial law of 1977.

Historical context

The 1971 war ended with East Pakistan becoming Bangladesh. This Karachi weekly’s 1970–1978 run crosses that rupture and continues into 1978, under Zia-ul-Haq’s martial law.

Sources: US Department of State, The South Asia Crisis and the Founding of Bangladesh; Pakistan Press Foundation, journalists’ protest and floggings of 1978.

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Al-Fatah, coverAl-Fatah, second view

77. The Herald

Karachi | English | 14 issues, 1970 to 2001

The current affairs monthly of the Dawn group, which reported on military rule and on censorship. Half of the issues here come from 1970.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of The Herald.

Historical context

Herald first appeared in January 1970 and continued until July 2019. The magazine combined current-affairs reporting with investigation and cultural coverage. Seven of the fourteen issues offered here come from its first year.

Sources: Herald, “Stop press” (2019); Khajistan product record and accompanying issue list.

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The Herald, coverThe Herald, second view

80. Afrasia

Lahore | Urdu | 67 issues, 1976 to 1981

A weekly from the Nawa-e-Waqt group in Lahore, edited by Abdul Qadir Hassan. Most of the issues come from 1976 and 1977.

Historical context

Pakistan’s 1973 constitution established a parliamentary system with a National Assembly and Senate. These issues date from the final years of Bhutto’s government and the military rule that followed.

Sources: National Assembly of Pakistan, parliamentary history.

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81. Islami Jamhooria

Lahore | Urdu | 67 issues, 1976 to 1979

A weekly from Nai Zindagi Publications, edited by Mujeeb-ur-Rehman Shami, from the months around the fall of Bhutto in 1977.

Historical context

General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto’s government and imposed martial law in July 1977. The magazine’s 1976–1979 run covers the last months of Bhutto’s government and the first years of military rule, when the regime banned the opposition daily Musawwat and, in May 1978, had journalists publicly flogged.

Sources: Pakistan Press Foundation, journalists’ protest and floggings of 1978; Pakistan Code, Motion Pictures Ordinance, 1979, preamble (Proclamation of 5 July 1977).

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82. Meyaar

Karachi | Urdu | 27 issues, 1976 to 1978

The Karachi weekly edited and published by Mehmood Shaam, mostly from 1977.

Historical context

These issues cluster around 1977, the year General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto’s government and imposed martial law. Pakistani journalists organized protests against the censorship that followed.

Sources: Pakistan Press Foundation, journalists’ protest and floggings of 1978.

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84. Waqt

Karachi | Urdu | 38 issues, 1979 to 1981

The Karachi magazine edited and published by Mehmood Ahmed Farooqi, with issues from late 1979 to mid-1981.

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Waqt, coverWaqt, second view

85. Soviet Union

Moscow | Urdu | 21 issues, 1983 to 1986

The Urdu edition of Soviet Union, the illustrated monthly Moscow printed in twenty languages to show the progress of the state. It took that name in 1950, continuing USSR in Construction, which was founded on the initiative of Maxim Gorky in 1930.

Historical context

USSR in Construction was published from 1930 to 1941, and again in 1949, to present Soviet development to readers abroad; Soviet Union succeeded it in 1950. These Urdu issues date from the Soviet war in Afghanistan.

Sources: Wende Museum, USSR in Construction / Soviet Union; US Department of State, Afghanistan historical background.

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86. Viewpoint

Lahore | English | 313 issues, 1984 to 1989

The Lahore weekly edited and published by Mazhar Ali Khan, with 313 issue records covering 1984 to 1989.

Historical context

Mazhar Ali Khan launched Viewpoint on Pakistan’s Independence Day in 1975. The weekly continued through Zia-ul-Haq’s rule; Khan’s editorials from 1975–1992 were later collected by Oxford University Press.

Sources: Oxford University Press, Pakistan: The Barren Years.

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Viewpoint, coverViewpoint, second view

Literature, Language & Book History

Literary journals, poetry, fiction, arts magazines and reference publishing in Urdu and Persian.

89. Negar

Urdu | 48 issues, 1947 to 1969

Niaz Fatehpuri’s literary monthly of essays and poetry, with issues from 1947 through the 1969 Khuda number.

Historical context

Niaz Fatehpuri began Nigar in Agra in February 1922 and moved it to Bhopal in 1926. A Pakistani edition began in February 1960 under his son Arif Niazi, edited jointly with Farman Fatehpuri; Niaz moved to Karachi in 1962, and from 1964 the magazine was published only from Karachi.

Sources: British Library, Nigar, Endangered Archives Programme EAP839/2/2.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Negar.

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90. Mah-i-Nau

Karachi | Urdu | 39 issues, 1949 to 1978

The literary monthly of Idara-e-Matbuat Pakistan, the government publishing office in Karachi. Most listed copies date from the early 1950s. Thirty-nine issues are offered; thirty-seven are itemised in the accompanying list.

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92. Armaghan-e-Hijaz

Lahore | Persian | 280 pages, 1951

Iqbal’s last book of poems, published after his death, here in a Lahore edition from Ahsan Brothers. Hardcover.

Historical context

Iqbal’s Armaghan-e-Hijaz was published posthumously in 1938. This Lahore edition was printed in 1951, after the poet’s death and the creation of Pakistan.

Sources: Saleha Nazeer, “Iqbal’s final address to God and the Prophet”, Iqbal Review 59:2–4 (2018).

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Armaghan-e-Hijaz, coverArmaghan-e-Hijaz, second view

95. Naqoosh

Lahore | Urdu | 35 issues, 1954 to 1985

Muhammad Tufail’s literary journal from Lahore, including Afsana and Ghazal special numbers. Thirty-five issues are offered; thirty are itemised in the accompanying list.

Historical context

Naqoosh began in Lahore in March 1948. Under Muhammad Tufail, its special numbers brought together fiction, poetry, criticism and biographical material. These substantial thematic issues made the periodical a reference resource as well as a venue for new writing.

Sources: Afzal Butt and Rubina Zaidi, “The Role of Naqoosh in the Development of Urdu Literature,” Makhz (2020).

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99. Rooman, Lahore

Lahore | Urdu | November 1962

One issue of the Lahore monthly edited and published by Syed Samiuddin: volume 10, number 11. A distinct title from the Karachi Rooman.

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Rooman, Lahore

100. Urdu Nama

Karachi | Urdu | 17 issues, 1963 to 1975

The journal of the Urdu Development Board in Karachi, edited by Mumtaz Hassan with Josh Malihabadi.

Historical context

The Urdu Development Board was established in 1958 for the development of Urdu language and literature; it was renamed the Urdu Dictionary Board in 1982.

Sources: Pakistan National Heritage and Culture Division, Year Book 2022–23.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Urdu Nama.

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104. Shahkar

Lahore | Urdu | 31 books, 1975 to 1978

The fortnightly book series of Maktaba Shahkar, published by Syed Qasim Mehmood. It mixed Urdu classics such as Azad’s Ghubar-e-Khatir with translations of Victor Hugo and Erich Segal.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Shahkar.

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106. Sabrang Digest

Pakistan | Urdu | 26 issues, 1985 to 2010

An Urdu fiction digest from Sabrang Publications. Most listed issues date from 2008 to 2010; the earliest is July–August 1985. Twenty-six issues are offered; twenty-five are itemised in the accompanying list.

Historical context

Shakeel Adilzada launched Sabrang in January 1970. Alongside stories and serial fiction, his personal editorial, Zati Safhah, became a distinctive part of the magazine. Sabrang helped carry literary fiction into the mass-market Urdu digest format.

Sources: Sarfaraz Hussain and Shazra Hussain, “The Place of Sabrang Digest in Urdu Literature,” Urdu 100:1 (2024), 9–25.

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Women & Gender

Women’s periodicals and a campaign banner issued by the Women’s Wing of Jamaat-e-Islami.

108. Jauhar-e-Niswan

Urdu | 47 issues, 1956 to 1960

A women’s monthly published by Raziq al-Khairi and edited by women writers such as Amna Nazli and Zahra Sheikh.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Jauhar-e-Niswan.

Historical context

Jauhar-e-Niswan was mostly patterns for embroidery and stitching, with articles on women’s political contributions and access to education, and recipes. Published from Delhi before Partition, it was publishing from Karachi by March 1948, when it urged readers to set up sewing workshops so that refugee women could earn from handicrafts.

Sources: Charlotte Giles, Library of Congress, “An Urdu Women’s Magazine from during Partition” (2020).

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111. International Hijab Day banner

Karachi | Urdu | 2023

An Urdu campaign banner issued by the Women’s Wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, collected from the road in P.E.C.H.S., Karachi. Its text ties masculine honour to public morality. Large Nastaliq lettering runs over a floral ground with a hijab emblem, and religious advocacy takes on the look of a street advertisement. Complete and legible, with folds and surface wear.

Exhibited in Spasial Program by Khajistan, SculptureCenter, New York, 19 June–28 July 2025.

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Urdu International Hijab Day banner with a floral ground and a purple hijab emblem

Religion & Religious Life

Religious periodicals and a Shia almanac printed in Kanpur in 1894.

112. Shia Almanac (Jantri)

Kanpur | Urdu | 1894

A Shia almanac printed by Nami Press in Kanpur in 1894, listing the year’s important religious dates. Paperback, in poor condition.

Historical context

Lithographic presses in north India printed Urdu jantris, which are basically calendars, through the nineteenth century. R. C. Kapoor records a Kanpur publisher whose 1,200 printed copies of its Hindi almanac and Urdu jantri for 1854 sold out.

Sources: R. C. Kapoor, Indian Journal of History of Science 53.3 (2018), 325–340, especially 333.

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Shia Almanac (Jantri)

Childhood & Education

Urdu children’s magazines published from the 1960s to 2010.

115. Urdu children’s magazines

Pakistan | Urdu | about 1,000 issues, 1960s to 2010

About a thousand issues of Urdu children’s magazines published in Pakistan from the 1960s to 2010, including Taleem-o-Tarbiyat, Hamdard Naunehal, Sathi and Bachon Ki Duniya. Stories, educational features and illustrated covers offer material for studying childhood, reading and changing social expectations.

Historical context

Taleem-o-Tarbiyat began in Lahore in 1941. Hakim Mohammed Said started Hamdard Naunehal in 1953, aiming to build children’s language skills and their moral and spiritual development.

Research on Taleem-o-Tarbiyat has traced the unequal roles assigned to boys and girls in its writing and illustrations.

Sources: Rauf Parekh, “Once-popular Urdu mags for kids in a downward spiral,” Dawn (2024); Hamdard Foundation Pakistan, “Publications”; Ambreen Shahnaz, Syeda Tamkeen Fatima and Samina Amin Qadir, “‘The myth that children can be anything they want’: gender construction in Pakistani children literature,” Journal of Gender Studies 29:4 (2020), 470–482.

Scans in the Reading Room: Urdu children’s magazines, including Taleem-o-Tarbiyat, Hamdard Naunehal, Sathi and Bachon Ki Duniya.

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Urdu children’s magazine cover with two cartoon childrenA spread of Urdu children’s magazine coversA second spread of covers

Persia

Tehran magazines, an endowment deed and photographs from Iranian film sets, from the Qajar period through the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic.

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Film, Television & Photography

Film magazines, television and music coverage, production photographs and cinema posters.

116. Sitare Cinema

Tehran | Persian | 500 issues

Five hundred issues of Sitare Cinema, the Tehran film magazine, with interviews, reviews and coverage of Iranian and international cinema.

Historical context

Sitare Cinema began publication in 1953. It covered Iranian and foreign films through reviews, interviews and news of actors and productions.

Sources: Nashrieh archive, Setareh Cinema.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Sitare Cinema.

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Sitare Cinema, coverSitare Cinema, cover

117. Photographs from Iranian film sets

Iran | 75 photographs, 1960s and 1970s

Original photographs taken behind the scenes of Iranian films made before the 1979 revolution. The prints show age toning and handling marks.

Historical context

The Iranian New Wave developed from the mid-1960s alongside the commercial film industry. These photographs date from the last two decades before the 1979 revolution.

Sources: Cinema Iranica, New Wave Cinema.

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Iranian film set photographIranian film set photograph

118. Tamasha

Tehran | Persian | 287 issues, 1970s

A Tehran magazine for film and television in the 1970s, which also covered the popular music of the period. The run shows the entertainment world of Tehran in the decade before the revolution.

Historical context

Tamasha was the weekly publication of National Iranian Radio and Television. The British Library dates its first issue to 18 March 1971 and its last to 23 December 1978.

Sources: British Library, Tamasha catalogue record, EAP1200.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Tamasha.

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Tamasha, coverTamasha, cover

119. Iranian film posters

Iran | Persian | 30 posters, 1980s to 2000s

Posters for Iranian action and family films made after the revolution. The examples shown advertise Oqabha va Gorg-ha (Eagles and Wolves), directed by Naser Mehdipour, and Toghyan (Rebellion), directed by Jahangir Bahonar.

Historical context

Cinema Iranica dates the first wave of the Iranian New Wave from the mid-1960s to 1979, and a second wave to the beginning of the postrevolutionary era.

Sources: Cinema Iranica, New Wave Cinema.

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Iranian film posterIranian film poster

Political History, Journalism & Satire

Illustrated journalism and political cartoons across the Pahlavi monarchy and the Islamic Republic.

120. Towfigh

Tehran | Persian | 493 issues, 1923 to 1971

A collection of 493 issues of Towfigh, the Persian satirical newspaper founded by Hossein Towfigh and continued by successive members of his family. Its illustrated covers and cartoons address public affairs and everyday life. Selected covers are shown here.

Historical context

Towfigh’s offices and its editor’s house were looted and burned during the 1953 coup. It returned in 1958 under the founder’s nephews and was closed by the censorship authorities in 1971.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Towfiq Newspaper”.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Towfigh.

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Towfigh cover with a cartoon dentist and a seated patientA second illustrated Towfigh cover

121. Ettelaat-e Mahaneh

Tehran | Persian | 24 issues, 1955 to 1956

The monthly of the Ettelaat newspaper from the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah. All twenty-four issues are bound into two hardcover volumes.

Historical context

Ettelaat expanded its publishing business after the 1953 coup while adopting a conservative, pro-government position. These monthly volumes belong to that period of commercial growth and closer alignment with the monarchy.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ettelaat.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Ettelaat-e Mahaneh.

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Ettelaat Mahaneh, bound volumeEttelaat Mahaneh, bound volume

122. Bamshad

Tehran | Persian | 116 issues, 1956 to 1968

A Tehran magazine of society and politics edited by Esmail Purvali, reporting on the industrial and cultural changes of its years.

Historical context

Esmail Purvali brought out the weekly Bamshad in June–July 1956, and a newspaper of the same name that autumn. In the summer of 1957 a line from Hafez, printed as the caption to a childhood photograph of the shah, was read as satire; both were suppressed and Purvali spent forty days in prison. The magazine stayed banned. The newspaper continued, became a weekly news magazine in 1964, and stopped in 1969 under political and financial pressure.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Bamshad.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Bamshad.

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Bamshad, coverBamshad, cover

123. Ettelaat-e Haftegi

Tehran | Persian | 51 issues, 1966 to 1978

The weekly magazine of the Ettelaat newspaper group, edited by Fathollah Javadi, with articles on culture and politics as well as sport and science.

Historical context

Ettelaat’s illustrated magazines formed part of a large commercial press group closely aligned with the Pahlavi establishment. After the 1979 revolution, the state confiscated the group. These issues precede that change in ownership.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ettelaat.

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Ettelaat Haftegi, coverEttelaat Haftegi, cover

124. Khandaniha

Tehran | Persian | 27 issues, 1970s

A selection from the Persian magazine edited by Ali Asghar Amirani, which set original articles beside material drawn from other publications. Twenty-seven issues, not a continuous run. The copies shown are worn at the edges and the paper has toned.

Historical context

Censorship restricted Iran’s commercial press during the Pahlavi monarchy. Editors worked under official supervision, and the government could close publications. This collection dates from the 1970s, before the revolution briefly loosened those controls.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Censorship.

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Khandaniha cover showing armed figuresA second Khandaniha cover

125. Karikator

Tehran | Persian | 354 issues, 1972 to 1980

A Tehran satirical magazine built around cartoons on public affairs and social life. This collection spans the last years of the monarchy and the first years after the 1979 revolution.

Historical context

Censorship relaxed with the revolutionary movement of the late 1970s. Soon after the revolution of February 1979 the Tehran dailies Ettelaat and Kayhan were taken over by religious groups, and in the summer of 1980 a decree required printing houses to verify the seal of the Ministry of Islamic Guidance before printing anything. These issues run from 1972 to 1980.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Censorship.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Karikator.

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Karikator, coverKarikator, cover

126. Gol Agha

Tehran | Persian | 51 issues, 1991 to 1993

The satirical weekly edited by Kioumars Saberi Foumani, from its first years after the war with Iraq. The copies are in fair to good condition.

Historical context

Gol Agha began as a weekly on 23 October 1990, with moral and financial support from the establishment, and its circulation soon passed 100,000 copies a week. Several of its editors had worked on Towfigh, the satirical weekly closed in the early 1970s, and its format closely copied Towfigh’s. Only non-clerical members of the political elite became the butt of its humour.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Gol-Āqā.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of Gol Agha.

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Gol Agha, coverGol Agha, cover

Women & Gender

Iranian women’s magazines and an Ottoman Turkish biographical dictionary of women.

127. Meşâhirü’n-Nisa (Famous Women)

Istanbul | Ottoman Turkish | two volumes; volume I dated 1294 AH (1877–1878)

Mehmed Zihni’s biographical dictionary of women, in two volumes. The photographed title page of volume I names Istanbul’s Dârü’t-Tıbâati’l-Âmire printing house and gives the date 1294 AH. Hardcover, in poor condition.

Historical context

Mehmed Zihni Efendi (1846–1913) compiled biographies of about 1,165 women famous in learning, literature and politics, arranged alphabetically in two volumes. The Ottoman Ministry of Education had volume I printed in 1294 AH (1877) and volume II in 1295 AH (1878) at the Dârü’t-Tıbâati’l-Âmire.

Sources: Ahmet Yesevi University, Meşâhirü’n-Nisâ.

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Meşâhirü’n-Nisa, Ottoman Turkish biographical dictionaryMeşâhirü’n-Nisa, Ottoman Turkish biographical dictionary

128. Ettelaat-e Banuvan

Tehran | Persian | 46 issues, 1957 to 1978

A Tehran women’s weekly with pages on film stars and the royal family beside advice on health and the home. This collection spans 1957 to 1978.

Historical context

Iranian women gained the vote in 1963, while women’s organisations increasingly came under royal patronage. Ettelaat-e Banuvan, the Ettelaat group’s magazine for women and girls, ran from 21 March 1956 to 18 April 1979.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Feminist Movements: The Pahlavi Period; Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ettelaat.

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Ettelaat-e Banuvan, coverEttelaat-e Banuvan, cover

129. Zan-e Rooz

Tehran | Persian | 164 issues, 1967 to 1978

Woman of Today, the Kayhan women’s weekly edited by Majid Devami. Fashion and beauty pages sit beside articles on art and on the changing place of women in Iran.

Historical context

Iranian women gained the vote in 1963. Family Protection Laws followed in 1967 and 1975; the 1975 law set a minimum age for marriage and gave women equal rights to submit divorce requests. These issues run from 1967 to 1978.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Feminist Movements: The Pahlavi Period”.

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Zan-e Rooz, coverZan-e Rooz, cover

Sport & Youth Culture

Sports reporting and a weekly magazine for young readers.

130. Keyhan Verzeshi

Tehran | Persian | 450 issues

The sports magazine of the Keyhan publishing house, with match reports and player profiles from Iranian and international competition.

Historical context

Kayhan Varzeshi first appeared in Azar 1334 (late 1955) as the sports weekly of the Kayhan newspaper. In his recollection Sadraddin Elahi says Manouchehr Gharagozlou was named its manager and Mahmoud Monsefi its editor in name, while Kazem Gilanpour ran it from inside and Elahi worked beside him.

Sources: Sadraddin Elahi, recollection of founding Kayhan Varzeshi.

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Keyhan Verzishi, coverKeyhan Verzishi, cover

131. Javanan-e Emrooz

Iran | Persian | 38 issues, 1970 to 1978

Today’s Youth, a weekly for young readers that covered education and politics along with sport and social life.

Historical context

The Ettelaat group started Ettelaat-e Javanan, a magazine for the young, on 11 December 1958 and renamed it Javanan-e Emrooz on 31 July 1959. Beside the daily, the group also published magazines for women and girls and for children and teenagers, and an Arabic news magazine.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, Ettelaat.

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Javanan-e Emrooz, coverJavanan-e Emrooz, cover

Religion & Endowments

A Qajar endowment deed for a Muharram majlis.

132. Endowment deed for the majlis of Hazrat Abbas

Qajar Iran | Persian | 1329 AH (1911 to 1912)

An illuminated waqf-nama in Persian Nastaliq that sets aside an endowment to keep a Muharram majlis with Quran recitation and hospitality for those who attend. The deed places the endowment in the name of Abu al-Fazl al-Abbas, standard-bearer and water-carrier of Karbala. At the head a stepped minbar is painted among boteh and floral sprays, and the seals and attestations of witnesses fill the side panels and the margin. The sheet has been folded, with cracks and small losses along the folds and staining throughout; the reverse is blank and carries an old paper repair.

Historical context

Muharram gatherings commemorate the deaths at Karbala in 680. Under the Qajars, mourning ceremonies and dramatic performances received support from rulers and private patrons. This deed assigns income to Quran recitation and hospitality at a majlis for Abbas.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Iranica, “Taʿzia”.

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Illuminated Persian endowment deed of 1911 for the majlis of Hazrat AbbasFull face of the endowment deed, with its painted minbar, seals and lines of nasta’liqReverse of the endowment deed, showing the paper, folds and old staining

Music & Folklore

Azerbaijani folk songs published in Tabriz.

133. Azerbaijani Folk Songs

Tabriz | Persian | 1955

A collection of Azerbaijani songs with musical notation, edited by Aziz Shabani and published by the Shabani Music Academy in Tabriz. The title page is dated Farvardin 1334 (March–April 1955). The copy is in poor condition.

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Azerbaijani Folk Songs, 1955Azerbaijani Folk Songs, 1955

Arabia

Magazines from Cairo make up most of this section, from Hawaa, the women’s weekly of Dar al-Hilal, to the children’s magazines Sindbad and Mickey. Two army magazines sit among them with the picture books given to Iraqi children during the war with Iran. Two cartoon books from Israel are here as well, one of them a 1967 army booklet that reprints cartoons from Arab newspapers.

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134. Al-Sharq

Egypt | Arabic | 29 issues, 1957 to 1976

Al-Sharq (The East), an Arabic digest of Soviet culture edited by Muhammad Mandour. The collection includes the first number of April 1957 and issues from 1958 and 1959.

Historical context

Al-Sharq introduced Arabic readers to Soviet literature, science and political writing during the Cold War. Its November 1957 number marked forty years since the Russian Revolution, placing Lenin and Soviet social policy alongside reports on Sputnik.

Sources: Al-Adab 5:5 (May 1957), pp. 97–105, contemporary review of Al-Sharq; Photograph of the offered copy.

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Al-Sharq, coverAl-Sharq, second view

137. Sindbad

Egypt | Arabic | 23 weekly issues, 1956 to 1957

The children’s weekly of Dar al-Maarif, in numbers from July 1956 to January 1957 bound in hardcover.

Historical context

Dar al-Maarif launched Sindbad in 1952 for Arabic-reading children across the Arab world and abroad. Editor Muhammad Said al-Aryan presented it as education beyond the classroom, and Hussein Bicar’s illustrations influenced a generation of book illustrators.

Sources: American University of Beirut Libraries, Sindbad.

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Sindbad, coverSindbad, second view

138. Mickey

Egypt | Arabic | 22 weekly issues, 1981

The Arabic Mickey Mouse weekly from Dar al-Hilal, edited by Iffat Nasir. Twenty-two consecutive numbers from January to June 1981, bound in hardcover.

Historical context

Disney’s Mickey first appeared in Arabic in Samir in 1956, before Dar al-Hilal launched a separate magazine in 1959. Translators adapted names, dialogue and visual details for local readers; Donald Duck became Battout and Goofy became Bunduq.

Sources: American University of Beirut Libraries, Mickey and Tintin.

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Mickey, coverMickey, second view

139. Al-Ma’rifah

Egypt | Arabic | 42 issues, 1970s

Forty-two parts of Al-Ma’rifah, an illustrated encyclopaedic series associated with Al-Ahram, covering science, technology, history and the arts.

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Al-Ma’rifah, coverAl-Ma’rifah, second view

140. Majallat al-Riyadiyah al-Badaniyah

Cairo | Arabic | 12 issues, 1948

Physical Culture Magazine for the whole of 1948 in one bound volume, from Dar al-Polis in Cairo. Illustrated exercise routines run beside articles on male vitality and marriage. The covers are worn and stained, and the binding is secure.

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141. Hawaa

Cairo | Arabic | 48 issues, 1958 to 1979

Hawaa (Eve), the women’s weekly of Dar al-Hilal in Cairo, associated with its founding editor Amina al-Said. Most of these issues date from 1958 and 1959, with later numbers extending into the 1970s.

Historical context

Hawaa first appeared in 1954, and Amina al-Said was the first woman to edit it. Her writing took up larger subjects than the beauty tips and recipes usual in women’s pages, and her defence of equality between men and women drove it for many years.

Sources: Dar al-Hilal, Amina al-Said.

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Hawaa, coverHawaa, second view

142. Al-Ittihad al-Sufiyyi

Soviet Union | Arabic | 21 issues, 1967 to 1985

The Arabic edition of the illustrated magazine Soviet Union, edited by Nikolai Gribachev and printed in Moscow for readers in the Arab world.

Historical context

Soviet Union succeeded USSR in Construction in 1950. Published in several languages, it promoted Soviet achievements to readers abroad through photography and illustrated reports. The Arabic edition formed part of this international propaganda publishing.

Sources: University of Saskatchewan Library, USSR in Construction; Van Abbemuseum, Sovetskii Soyuz.

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Al-Ittihad al-Sufiyyi, coverAl-Ittihad al-Sufiyyi, second view

143. Al-Mukhtar

Cairo | Arabic | 100 issues, 1956 to 1990

One hundred issues of Al-Mukhtar, the Arabic edition of Reader’s Digest, with articles on health, science and social life.

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Al-Mukhtar, coverAl-Mukhtar, second view

145. Majallati

Egypt | Arabic | 6 issues, 1935 to 1937

A cultural and literary magazine published in Egypt by Ahmed al-Sawy Mohamed. Four issues come from 1935 and two from February 1937.

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Majallati, coverMajallati, second view

146. The Brave Soldier

Baghdad | Arabic | picture book, 1980s

A picture book in the Buds series of the Children’s Culture House in Baghdad that introduces children to the branches of the Iraqi armed forces. Riyad al-Salem wrote it and Amer Rashad drew the tanks and warships.

Historical context

During the Iran–Iraq War the Children’s Culture House in Baghdad, formed in 1969, published war stories for young readers. In 2005 its publications editor Riyadh Salem said: “We printed stories from the Iran war to mobilise the child for war.”

Sources: Institute for War and Peace Reporting, interview with Riyadh Salem (2005).

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The Brave Soldier, coverThe Brave Soldier, second view

147. Al-Hilal

Cairo | Arabic | 18 issues, 1948 to 1978

The cultural monthly of Dar al-Hilal, founded in 1892. Half of the issues here come from 1948 and 1949 and the rest from the 1970s.

Historical context

Jurji Zaydan founded Al-Hilal in 1892 as a vehicle for popular education. Its combination of literature, history, science and social commentary made the monthly an important forum of the Arabic Nahda, or cultural renaissance.

Sources: George Choucri Zaidan, “Jurji Zaidan’s Life Journey”, 27 April–3 May 2023 (Zaidan Foundation).

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Al-Hilal, coverAl-Hilal, second view

148. Al-Fukaha

Egypt | Arabic | 5 issues, 1929 and 1969

Five issues of the Dar al-Hilal humour weekly. The early issue shown is number 130, dated 22 May 1929; the other four are catalogued from the spring of 1969.

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Al-Fukaha, coverAl-Fukaha, second view

149. Iqra

Egypt | Arabic | 20 booklets, 1952 to 1982

Iqra (Read), the series of short books from Dar al-Maarif in Egypt. Among its writers here are Ahmed Amin and Muhammad Farid Abu Hadid.

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Iqra, coverIqra, second view

151. Tales from Saddam’s Qadisiyah

Baghdad | Arabic | 25 pages, 1986

War stories for Iraqi children from the Children’s Culture House of the Ministry of Culture and Media, published during the war with Iran. Riyad al-Salem wrote the text and Mohamed Shawky drew the pictures. In excellent condition.

Historical context

Saddam Hussein called the war with Iran “Saddam’s Qadisiyah”, after the seventh-century battle of the Arab conquests in which the Arabs defeated the Persians, and turned it into a metaphor for Arab–Iranian relations. This children’s book carries that wartime slogan in its title.

Sources: D. Gershon Lewental, “‘Saddam’s Qadisiyyah’: Religion and History in the Service of State Ideology in Baʿthi Iraq”, Middle Eastern Studies 50:6 (2014).

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Tales from Saddam’s Qadisiyah, coverTales from Saddam’s Qadisiyah, second view

152. Al-Dunya al-Jadeeda

Egypt | Arabic | 5 issues, 1944 to 1946

Al-Dunya al-Jadeeda (The New World), edited by Abdul Moneim Hassan. The collection includes the December 1946 number, marked as the second issue of its third year.

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Al-Dunya al-Jadeeda, coverAl-Dunya al-Jadeeda, second view

154. Al-Ikha

Baghdad | Arabic | 4 issues, 1962 to 1963

Al-Ikha (Brotherhood), the literary and cultural monthly of the Turkmen Brotherhood Club in Baghdad. The masthead names Mohammad al-Hajj Ezzat as responsible editor and Habib al-Hurmuzli as editorial secretary. The copies are in poor condition.

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155. In Short: Israel

Friedel Stern | Israel: Hod | Hebrew and English | 1958

A cartoon book by Friedel Stern that follows a tourist through the young state, mocking its bureaucracy and its manners in the first decade after independence. Stern was born in Leipzig in 1917 and settled in Palestine in 1936.

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156. Israel Must Be Annihilated

Tel Aviv | Hebrew and English | booklet, 1967

A booklet issued by the Israeli army information office in July 1967, just after the Six-Day War, that reprints cartoons from Arab newspapers calling for the destruction of Israel. Its Hebrew title, Kav ha-Hashmadah shel Nasser, sets the material under the name of Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser.

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Israel Must Be Annihilated, coverIsrael Must Be Annihilated, second view

Khorasan

Anti-Soviet posters printed in Peshawar and a Dari and Pashto reading primer from the Afghan war of the 1980s.

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Jump to item 157–159

1981–1985

157. Babrak (ببرک), anti-communist jihad poster

Afghanistan and Pakistan | Dari and English | 1981 to 1985

An original poster printed in Peshawar between 1981 and 1985 by the Internal Islamic Fronts of Afghanistan, the group of Professor Sayyed Mahmood. It shows Babrak Karmal, head of the Soviet-backed government in Kabul, as a horned beast marked with the hammer and sickle and run through with a sword. About 1,000 copies were printed of each design and carried through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The sheet measures 9 by 13.5 inches. It comes from the family of a diplomat posted to Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War.

Exhibited in Office of War Information (O.W.I.), Pioneer Works, New York, 2026.

Historical context

Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in December 1979 and installed Babrak Karmal as head of government. The poster attacks Karmal personally, depicting him with a hammer and sickle on his body.

Sources: US Department of State, Afghanistan historical background.

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Babrak poster, Peshawar, 1981 to 1985

158. Farjam-e Iblis (فرجام ابلیس), anti-communist jihad poster

Afghanistan and Pakistan | Dari and English | 1981 to 1985

An original poster printed in Peshawar between 1981 and 1985 by the Internal Islamic Fronts of Afghanistan. Its title means The Fate of Iblis, the Satan of the Qur’an. A wounded soldier marked with the hammer and sickle drags himself through ruins toward a tower like those of the Kremlin. About 1,000 copies were printed of each design and carried through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The sheet measures 9 by 13.5 inches. It comes from the family of a diplomat posted to Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan War.

Exhibited in Office of War Information (O.W.I.), Pioneer Works, New York, 2026.

Historical context

The Soviet-backed government in Kabul faced an armed mujahideen insurgency throughout the 1980s. This poster was printed across the border in Peshawar for circulation in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Sources: US Department of State, Afghanistan historical background.

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Farjam-e Iblis poster, Peshawar, 1981 to 1985

1986

159. The Alphabet of Jehaad Literacy, Volume 2, 1986

Afghanistan | Dari and Pashto | 1986

The second volume of a reading primer by F. M. M. Asmaie, published in 1986 by the Education Center for Afghanistan of the Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen. Its lessons in Dari and Pashto teach reading through anti-Soviet political instruction. The book runs to 215 pages in a hard binding with a black cloth spine.

Exhibited in Office of War Information (O.W.I.), Pioneer Works, New York, 2026.

Historical context

The Soviet war in Afghanistan was still under way in 1986. The Islamic Unity of Afghanistan Mujahideen’s Education Center published this Dari and Pashto primer during that war.

Sources: US Department of State, Afghanistan historical background.

Also held in the Reading Room: digitised issues of The Alphabet of Jehaad Literacy, Volume 2, 1986.

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The Alphabet of Jehaad Literacy, Volume 2, front coverThe Alphabet of Jehaad Literacy, Volume 2, back cover

Khajistan Press

Books from Khajistan Press, many of them the first English editions of texts that circulated in Urdu, Persian or Arabic.

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Jump to item 253–271

253. Smut of the Middle World, Volume 1: Pakistan

Khajistan Press | hardcover, 297 pages

Pages from banned Pakistani magazines, printed beside negatives and lengths of damaged film. Edited by Saad Khan and designed by Joey Chriqui.

Historical context

Section 292 of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) makes it an offence to sell, hire out, distribute, exhibit or import obscene books, drawings and other objects. The penalty is up to three months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both.

Sources: Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), section 292.

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Smut of the Middle World, Volume 1: Pakistan

254. Kharabat, Volume 1

Farhad Qashqai | Khajistan Press | hardcover, 297 pages

Found photographs gathered by the Tehran artist Farhad Qashqai of the Kharabatis, a working-class brotherhood of Iranian men. The pictures come from family albums and from images passed around online, and they show tenderness between men in prisons and gyms as often as on the street.

Historical context

In Persian poetry, kharabat first meant a house or tavern of ill repute; mystics later took the word for a place they went to suspend any pretence of piety. One suggested etymology joins kharab, “ruinous”, and abad, “prosperous”.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Kharabat (poetry)”, citing Hamid Dabashi.

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Kharabat, Volume 1

255. American War Propaganda Leaflets, 1990 to 2022

Khajistan Press | paperback, 2024, 429 pages

Leaflets that American forces and the CIA dropped and distributed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in Libya.

Historical context

Twenty-nine million leaflets were dropped in the 1991 Gulf War, 80 million over Afghanistan from October 2001 to March 2002, and close to 50 million around the 2003 Iraq war. Over Libya in 2011, leaflets dropped on Tripoli told Qaddafi’s fighters to lay down their weapons.

Sources: Philip M. Taylor, “Psychological Operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom, 2003”, University of Leeds; Herbert A. Friedman, “Psychological Operation in Libya”.

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American War Propaganda Leaflets, 1990 to 2022

256. Lollywood Lobby Cards, Volume 1

Saad Khan and Omar Ali Khan | Khajistan Press | paperback, 281 pages, 2025

Lobby cards from Pakistani cinema, the printed stills that theatres hung in their foyers to sell a film.

Historical context

In the early 1970s Pakistan was the world’s fourth-largest producer of feature films, and from 1947 to 2007 most of them were made in Lahore. The industry declined under Zia-ul-Haq (1978–1988), when the government forced most of Lahore’s cinemas to close.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Cinema of Pakistan”.

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Lollywood Lobby Cards, Volume 1

257. Lollywood Lobby Cards, Volume 2

Omar Ali Khan | Khajistan Press | paperback, 264 pages, 2026

A second volume of Pakistani lobby cards, drawn from the collection of Omar Ali Khan.

Historical context

Omar Ali Khan directed Zibahkhana (Hell’s Ground), a horror film he wrote with Pete Tombs. It passed Pakistan’s censors with nine seconds cut and opened commercially in the third week of December 2007, the first feature shot on HDV rather than 35 mm to be released in Pakistani cinemas.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Zibahkhana”.

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Lollywood Lobby Cards, Volume 2

258. New York City Street Ephemera, 2023 to 2026

Chowi Cholita | Khajistan Press | paperback, 298 pages, 2026

Political stickers and posters taken from the walls and lampposts of New York over three years.

Historical context

Section 10-119 of the New York City Administrative Code makes it unlawful to paste, post or affix any handbill, poster, notice, sign, advertisement or sticker on a lamppost, tree, utility pole, bus shelter, mailbox, parking meter or traffic sign, among other street fixtures.

Sources: New York City Administrative Code § 10-119, Posting.

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New York City Street Ephemera, 2023 to 2026

259. Karachi, After Midnight, Volume 1

Shams Tabrizi (pseudonym) | Khajistan Press | paperback, 576 pages

The online diary of Shams, a young homosexual man in Karachi, printed without edits. This first volume gathers every entry from 2003, when he wrote about quarrels with his mother and about the men he watched from car windows.

Historical context

Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860) punishes “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” with imprisonment for life or for two to ten years, and makes the offender liable to a fine. It was in force when the diary was written and still is.

Sources: Pakistan Penal Code (Act XLV of 1860), section 377.

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260. Karachi, After Midnight, Volume 2

Shams Tabrizi (pseudonym) | Khajistan Press | paperback, 514 pages

The second volume of the diary covers 2004, a year that begins with drives through Clifton and Defence with friends and closes with illness and funerals.

Historical context

Defence began in March 1953 as the Pakistan Defence Officers Cooperative Housing Society, planned by a group of naval officers on 76.2 acres. In August 1980 a Presidential Order dissolved the society and replaced it with the Pakistan Defence Officers Housing Authority, and by 2011 it covered 8,796 acres in eight phases.

Sources: Defence Housing Authority Karachi, newsletter, 2011.

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Karachi, After Midnight, Volume 2

261. Karachi, After Midnight, Volume 3

Shams Tabrizi (pseudonym) | Khajistan Press | paperback, 590 pages

The last volume runs from 2005 to 2009. Shams lives through the earthquake and the killing of Benazir Bhutto while his friends marry around him, and the diary stops in the middle of a sentence.

Historical context

The earthquake of 8 October 2005 had its epicentre in Muzaffarabad District of Azad Kashmir; Pakistan’s official toll that November was 87,350 dead. Benazir Bhutto was killed on 27 December 2007 in a gun and suicide-bomb attack after a rally at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi, and riots followed, worst in Sindh.

Sources: Wikipedia, “2005 Kashmir earthquake”; Wikipedia, “Assassination of Benazir Bhutto”.

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Karachi, After Midnight, Volume 3

262. Loose Cannons and Dangerous Curves: An Unholy Bible of Pakistani Popular Cinema

Omar Ali Khan | Khajistan Press | paperback, 712 pages, 2024

Reviews of Pakistani films made between 1961 and 2022, most of them in Urdu or Punjabi, first published on Khan’s website The Hot Spot Online. The title was to end with Levitating Scriptures, after a scene in International Gorillay, until those words were judged too risky to print.

Historical context

International Gorillay, directed by Jan Mohammad, opened in Pakistan on 27 April 1990 with Salman Rushdie as its villain. The British Board of Film Classification refused it a certificate, on grounds of Rushdie’s safety by one account and of criminal libel by another. Rushdie opposed the ban and said he would not sue; two months later it was lifted, and the film was passed 18.

Sources: Wikipedia, “International Guerillas”; BFI Screenonline, “International Guerrillas and Criminal Libel”.

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Loose Cannons and Dangerous Curves: An Unholy Bible of Pakistani Popular Cinema

263. Homosexual Desires in Madrassas

Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar | Khajistan Press | paperback, 97 pages, second edition on premium paper, 2026

A sermon given in Urdu in Bangladesh in 1986 to the teachers and students of madrassas, warning them against the beauty of boys and closeness between men. It appears here in English for the first time.

Historical context

Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar was born in Pratapgarh in 1928 and moved to Pakistan in 1960 with his Sufi teacher Abdul Ghani Phulpuri. In 1980 he founded the Khanqah Imdadia Ashrafia in Karachi, which his disciples extended with branches in Bangladesh and elsewhere. He died in Karachi on 2 June 2013.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Hakeem Muhammad Akhtar”.

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Homosexual Desires in Madrassas

264. Mashallah Bohot Zabardast, Volume 1

Khajistan Press | paperback, 139 pages, 2023

Words and pictures collected from anonymous users of dating and social apps across Pakistan.

Historical context

In September 2020 the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority blocked Tinder, Grindr, Tagged, Skout and SayHi, citing “immoral/indecent content”. Over the previous twelve months Tinder had been downloaded more than 440,000 times in Pakistan, and Grindr about 300,000.

Sources: Al Jazeera, 2 September 2020.

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Mashallah Bohot Zabardast, Volume 1

265. Dickiran

Khajistan Press | paperback, 37 pages, 2023

Gentle drawings made from the pictures of their penises that men share in Iranian cyberspace.

Historical context

Article 14 of Iran’s Computer Crimes Law, adopted in 2009–2010, criminalises producing, sending, publishing, distributing or saving obscene content on a computer or telecommunication system, with the death penalty among the punishments available.

Sources: ARTICLE 19, “Islamic Republic of Iran: Computer Crimes Law”, 2012.

Paperback: Out of print. PDF edition available.

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Dickiran

266. True Colors of Filmic Fairies

Khurshid Alam | Khajistan Press | paperback, 224 pages, 2023

An English translation of Filmi Pariyon Key Par Purzey, Khurshid Alam’s account of the love affairs and private troubles of the film heroines of Lahore, drawn from Urdu dailies and showbiz papers.

Historical context

In 1948 Ilyas Rashidi founded Nigar in Karachi, an Urdu weekly given over to films and film personalities, and on 17 July 1957 he founded the Nigar Awards for Pakistani cinema.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Ilyas Rashidi”.

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True Colors of Filmic Fairies

267. There Are No Homosexuals in Iran

Khajistan Press | paperback, 77 pages

Encounters written down by an Iranian man who meets other men like himself and asks how they live. The text circulated online in Persian from 2021 and is printed here in English for the first time.

Historical context

At Columbia University in New York on 24 September 2007, asked about executions in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said: “In Iran, we don’t have homosexuals, like in your country.” The remark was cut or reworded out of the Farsi transcripts on his official website and from IRNA. Under the Islamic Penal Code ratified in 2013, the penalty for livat is death for the receptive partner in every case.

Sources: Associated Press, “Iran sites omit leader’s homosexuality remark”, 26 September 2007; Human Dignity Trust, Iran country profile, Islamic Penal Code articles 233–234.

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268. No Unnecessary Contact

Khajistan Press | paperback, 66 pages

The first English edition of a 2008 manual from Iranian state broadcasting on how television should show young men and women together. From the series Texts of the Middle World.

Historical context

Iran’s constitution places radio and television in the state sector (Article 44). Article 175 gives the appointment and dismissal of the head of the Radio and Television of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Leader and guarantees expression on it “in keeping with the Islamic criteria and the best interests of the country”.

Sources: Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, articles 44 and 175 (International Constitutional Law).

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No Unnecessary Contact

269. An Erection in Pakistan

Shahab Nazir | Khajistan Press | paperback, 76 pages

A polemic on the male body and clerical shame that first circulated online in Urdu as a series of images. Nazir draws on Sufi tradition and on Urdu print of the 1930s to defend intimacy between men. From the series Texts of the Middle World.

Historical context

Angarey, nine stories and a play by Sajjad Zaheer, Rashid Jahan, Mahmud-uz-Zafar and Ahmed Ali, was published in Lucknow in December 1932; Zaheer’s stories in it dealt with sexual desire and religious restriction. On 15 March 1933 the government of the United Provinces banned it under section 295A of the Indian Penal Code, and police destroyed all but five copies.

Sources: Wikipedia, “Angarey”.

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An Erection in Pakistan

270. Hunting Homosexuals in Occupied Iraq

Tharwat al-Hankawi al-Luhaybi | Khajistan Press | paperback

An Arabic chapbook, here in English, that blames homosexuality on the American occupation and records how militias and informants watched and killed accused men. From the series Texts of the Middle World.

Historical context

Human Rights Watch documented a campaign of killings, kidnappings and torture of men suspected of homosexual conduct, which most of the people it interviewed believed Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army launched in early 2009. Sadr City in Baghdad was a centre of it, and men were also targeted in Kirkuk, Najaf and Basra. It reported that Iraqi police and security forces did little to investigate or halt the killings.

Sources: Human Rights Watch, “They Want Us Exterminated”, 17 August 2009.

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Hunting Homosexuals in Occupied Iraq

271. Storms of Obscenity: Sexual Fear in Male Youth and Its Remedy

M. A. Waheed | Khajistan Press | paperback, 92 pages

A manual for young men first published in Pakistan in 2005, written by an old man on masturbation and semen loss and on the fears of the wedding night. From the series Texts of the Middle World.

Historical context

Psychiatrists call the fear of losing semen through urine, night emissions or masturbation, with weakness and fatigue blamed on the loss, dhat syndrome; ICD-10 lists it as a culture-specific disorder. Ayurvedic writing treated semen as a vital substance, and the condition is reported widely in Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Sources: Vandana Mehta, Abhishek De and C. Balachandran, “Dhat Syndrome: A Reappraisal”, Indian Journal of Dermatology 54 (2009), 89–90.

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Storms of Obscenity: Sexual Fear in Male Youth and Its Remedy

Films

Documentaries and telefilms from Pakistan, available to libraries and educational institutions through Khajistan Releasing.

Digital streaming licence (DSL): Price shown to colleges and universities per feature and telefilm; Qandeel is Price shown to colleges and universities. Licences are in perpetuity. Institutional educational use under a streaming licence agreement. Public performance rights and other uses are quoted separately. For licensing and preview requests, write to info@khajistan.com.

Jump to item 272–279

272. Showgirls of Pakistan

2020 | Documentary | 106 minutes
Directed by Saad Khan

Three mujra dancers navigate censorship, management and violence within Pakistan’s Punjabi theater industry.

Historical context

The mujra is a centuries-old dance genre that many in Pakistan now regard as vulgar. The film follows three dancers from Punjab who perform in theatres, at private parties abroad and to fans online, and who face censorship, prejudice and death threats. It premiered at IDFA in 2020. Khajistan screened it with the filmmakers at SculptureCenter on 20 July 2025.

Sources: IDFA, 2020 premiere; SculptureCenter, anniversary screening.

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Showgirls of Pakistan

273. Chuppan Chupai (Hide & Seek)

2013 | Documentary | 68 minutes
Directed by Saad Khan and Saadat Munir

Four homosexual and transgender Pakistanis navigate work, family, identity and visibility in Lahore and Rawalpindi.

Historical context

In 2009 Pakistan’s Supreme Court called on all provincial governments to recognise the rights of transgender people; in 2016 Human Rights Watch reported a rise in violent attacks on transgender women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Chuppan Chupai follows four people in Lahore and Rawalpindi, among them the activist Neeli and Jenny, a transgender woman. It screened at Frameline37 in 2013, ahead of Chris Belloni’s I Am Gay and Muslim.

Sources: Human Rights Watch, transgender rights in Pakistan; Frameline37, 2013 programme.

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Chuppan Chupai (Hide & Seek)

274. World Ka Centre (Center of the World)

2002 | Directors’ cut | 60 minutes
Directed by Faisal Rehman and Bilal Hasan Minto

A group of friends in Lahore spend their last day together on September 11, 2001, before one leaves for the United States.

Historical context

Made for Pakistan’s private television in the early 2000s, World Ka Centre places the events of 11 September 2001 within the routines and ambitions of working-class Lahore. SculptureCenter’s screening record says it aired only once, late at night on Geo Television, because of its male urination scenes and homosocial themes. Khajistan presented the film there on 6 July 2025.

Sources: SculptureCenter, World Ka Centre screening and broadcast history.

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World Ka Centre (Center of the World)

275. Javaid Shampoo

2004 | Directors’ cut | Approximately 73 minutes
Directed by Bilal Hasan Minto and Faisal Rehman

Javaid works in his family’s counterfeit shampoo business and imagines a different life in show business or in Kashmir.

Historical context

Pehlee Dharkan, billed as the first Pakistani film festival, was scheduled for Glasgow from 13 to 25 September 2005 to show Lollywood beside new independent work, and Javaid Shampoo was announced among its films. A preview described Javaid, whose family makes counterfeit shampoo, as wanting to be in show business or to join the jihad in Kashmir. Khajistan presented the Directors’ Cut at Recess, Brooklyn, on 10 October 2026.

Sources: Nona Walia, “Lollywood’s naya andaaz”, Times of India, 24 August 2005; Recess, Directors’ Cut screening.

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Javaid Shampoo

276. Kali Shalwar (Black Shalwar)

2007 | Directors’ cut | 45 minutes
Directed by Bilal Hasan Minto and Faisal Rehman

An adaptation of Saadat Hasan Manto’s story about Sultana, a sex worker who struggles to afford a black shalwar for Muharram.

Historical context

Manto’s story Kali Shalwar appeared in 1942 in the annual number of Adab-e Latif, Lahore, and some readers called it obscene. In his defence he asked why, if prostitution is allowed, writing about it should be illegal. In the story Sultana, a prostitute, wants a black shalwar to wear in Muharram.

Sources: Saadat Hasan Manto, defence of Kali Shalwar, translated by Muhammad Umar Memon; Rekhta, original story.

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Kali Shalwar (Black Shalwar)

277. Qandeel

2017 | Documentary | 24 minutes 50 seconds
Directed by Saad Khan and Tazeen Bari

The life and death of Qandeel Baloch, told through her videos, media appearances and the people who knew her.

Historical context

Qandeel Baloch, a working-class icon and social-media celebrity in Pakistan, was murdered in 2016. The documentary tells her story through her own videos and media appearances, with interviews with her family and supporters. It was commissioned through the Guardian Bertha documentary partnership and released in September 2017.

Sources: iWonder, film record and social-media setting; The Guardian, commissioning and release record.

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Qandeel

Spasial Program

Two archival video programmes, each available for Price shown to colleges and universities with a perpetual institutional licence.

278. Living Room TV

Spasial Program · Tape 1 | 96 minutes

Historical context

Iranian variety television from before the 1979 revolution appears beside PTV advertisements and news bulletins, a Saudi Channel 1 news bulletin, dance videos and Filmfarsi trailers. Khajistan showed these recordings on the television set in the Living Room of its 2025 SculptureCenter exhibition.

Sources: SculptureCenter, Spasial Program gallery guide, pp. 8–9.

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Khajistan Releasing cover for Spasial Program Tape 1: Living Room TV

279. Porn TV

Spasial Program · Tape 2 | 12 minutes

Historical context

Pashto and Punjabi erotic videos from Pakistan and Afghanistan, c. late 1990s–2000s, often ripped from music VCDs where they were hidden between tracks. Khajistan showed this compilation in the Narrow Corridor of its 2025 SculptureCenter exhibition.

Sources: SculptureCenter, Spasial Program gallery guide, p. 6.

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Khajistan Releasing cover for Spasial Program Tape 2: Porn TV

Exhibitions

We welcome proposals from museums and other institutions interested in hosting Khajistan exhibitions and screening programmes. Write to info@khajistan.com.

Available for programming

Selected past exhibitions and projects

Prices and enquiries

Prices in US dollars. Shipping quoted separately. For questions about any item, write to info@khajistan.com.

البيان—