{
  "id": 8286343,
  "title": "A millennium of fear and fascination: How the Arab world has shaped Paris",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/18/a-millennium-of-fear-and-fascination-how-the-arab-world-has-shaped-8286343",
  "topic": "culture",
  "section": "Culture",
  "published": "2026-09-18T18:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "The National Business",
    "slug": "the-national-business",
    "url": "https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/2026/09/18/arab-influence-paris-france/"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "In the Latin Quarter of Paris, with its cobblestones, cafes, and bookshops, an Egyptian intellectual named Rifaa Al Tahtawi might have felt quite familiar in the early 19th century. Al Tahtawi, who spent five years in Paris as the imam to the first Egyptian educational mission to France, observed many aspects of French society in his 1834 book, An Imam in Paris. He noted that the French were a curious people with a fascination for museums, fond of money and state intervention. Women, he observed, ruled the household. Al Tahtawi's account, though critical, offered a unique perspective on European society from an Arab point of view and became one of the most influential early introductions to French culture for Arab intellectuals.\n\nToday, few French people are familiar with Al Tahtawi's work, as France's relationship with the Arab world is often discussed in contemporary political terms. This leaves less space for the longer and more complex history of cultural and intellectual exchange between the two nations. The Arab World Institute, a vibrant institution in Paris, aims to fill this gap by hosting exhibitions, concerts, Arabic language classes, and the largest collection of modern and contemporary Arab art in the Western world.\n\nDuring a recent tour organized by the institute, visitors learned about the deep-rooted Arab-French relations that date back at least a millennium. Marie-Georges Nida, a speaker and art historian at the institute, guided the tour, emphasizing that the relationship between France and the Arab world has been shaped by fear and fascination, depending on the era, and often both at once.\n\nThe tour began at the Arab World Institute, which was founded in the post-colonial era of the 1960s as a way to maintain relations with former North African colonies. The project was revived after the 1973 oil shock, which led to French interest in projecting soft power to the Gulf states. The institute, now jointly managed by a French and Arab leadership structure, was opened in 1987 and designed to blend into Paris's skyline with its grey-and-glass facade.",
  "summary": "Imagine walking through the narrow streets of the Latin Quarter in Paris , with its cobblestones, cafes and bookshops. Now imagine seeing those streets for the first time as an Egyptian intellectual in the early 19th century. Rifaa Al Tahtawi's observations might sound surprisingly familiar today. The French, he wrote, were a curious people with a fascination for museums . They were fond of money…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 2,
    "also_reported_by": [
      {
        "outlet": "The National UAE",
        "title": "A millennium of fear and fascination: How the Arab world has shaped Paris",
        "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/18/a-millennium-of-fear-and-fascination-how-the-arab-world-has-shaped",
        "published": "2026-09-18T18:00:00.000Z"
      }
    ]
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}