Browse Resources

Leila Aboulela, Sudanese-born author of Minaret, was interviewed by Anita Sethl for the Guardian newspaper in London, June 2005. She discusses the relative importance of national and religious identity.

Marjane Satrapi, author of the graphic novel Persepolis, was interviewed for an article by Simon Hattenstone in the London Guardian newspaper in March 2008, just before release of the film version of Persepolis.

This brief video describes the arts of weaving, knotting, and dyeing fabrics, including patterned carpets, woven calligraphy and their uses in Muslim cultures at all levels of society. Related primary resource: A Geniza Letter Regarding Trade and…

The Butterfly Mosque is the memoir of an American woman raised in a secular family who discovers the value of religion during her travels. Interested in history, art, and literature, G. Willow Wilson takes a teaching job in Cairo. She meets the…

Western discussions of Muslim women’s public attire seldom take into account what women themselves think about this issue. In the past decade, the Gallup Organization has been polling intensively in Turkey and other Muslim countries. A Gallup…

Is veiling is oppressive? It’s not quite that simple. Offering insightful and often surprising analysis, Harvard professor Leila Ahmed has described a mostly unheralded trend among Muslim women: choosing to wear head coverings and concealing…

The Age-Old Modesty of the Veil: Banning the Veil in Iran (1930s) By Sattareh Farman Farmaian When my mother had learned that she was to lose the age-old modesty of her veil, she was beside herself. She and all traditional people regarded Reza's…

To The Countess of Mar, Adrianople [now Edirne], April 18, 1717 ….I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier's lady, and it was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an entertainment which was never given before to any…

Note: A WPA field worker, Everal J. McKinnon, interviewed Mike Abdullah in his home in Ross, North Dakota. I was born in Rufage, Rushia, Syria. I don't remember the date, nor the month[,] but I believe that it was in 1886. (People in the Old Country…

Note: A WPA field worker, Everal J. McKinnon, interviewed Mary Juma in her home in Ross, North Dakota. Because she could not speak English, her son, Charles Juma, interpreted. I was born in Byria, Rushia, Syria. I don't know my exact age, but…

Because Muslim women in Egypt have controlled their property, or rather because some of the wealthy women controlled their property, we find women as well as men setting up charitable endowments which are known as awqaf [plural]. A waqf [singular] is…

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood takes place in Fez, Morocco, in the 1940s and early 1950s. The harem of this memoir’s title is a large house with its own courtyard, shared by several generations of an extended family. Fatima…

Pakistan was created as an independent nation in 1947, carved from predominantly Muslim regions in the east and west of India after British colonial rule ended on the Indian subcontinent. Ever since, Pakistan has struggled to be Islamic yet secular,…

Edward E. Curtis IV places a treasure trove of information about Islam in the United States at the reader’s fingertips. The primary sources that make up this collection are arranged chronologically: from the early nineteenth century to World…

Highly symbolic and often misunderstood, Muslim women’s wearing of the veil sometimes evokes passionate responses, from other Muslims as well as from non-Muslims. In this insightful and often surprising analysis, Harvard University professor…

Leila Aboulela’s novel Minaret follows the spiritual journey of a young woman exiled from her home in Sudan and forced to invent a new life in London, far from the comforts of her privileged childhood and secular education. She supports herself…