An oil company walks into a library… The Paris Review reported that since 1949, Saudi Aramco has been publishing some of the most unexpected writing about the Islamic world, including which melons Ibn Battuta might have eaten in Uzbekistan, how a silver Habsburg coin ended up circulating in 1970s Oman, a look at the Polish aristocrat who disappeared into the Arabian Peninsula chasing purebred horses, and how eggplant was once blamed by Arab doctors for causing freckles and madness.

The Paris Review concluded that the magazine, over 77 years, has demonstrated that the story of the Muslim world is mostly just really interesting.

The Aramco magazine has covered Albanian folk music, Muslim influences on American blues, Arabic translations of superhero comics, and the migration of camels. It is mailed out of Texas every two months, and costs nothing.