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  • Time Period contains "6-9th century CE"

The Islamic empire of al-Andalus was known in its time as “the ornament of the world.” In particular, its capital city, Córdoba, was widely noted for its cosmopolitan culture, diverse population, and artistic achievements. In this…

In 2004, the noted scholar of comparative religion F. E. Peters produced a new edition of his well-regarded Children of Abraham. When initially published three decades ago, the book was one of the first scholarly works to place Islam alongside…

In the Qur’an, Muslims are instructed that at least once in their lives they must take part in the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, the spiritual center of the Islamic world . Over the centuries, artists, craftspeople, and others have…

“Islamic Art” is a tricky label. While it does refer to art created and used in Muslim rituals and practices, it also encompasses a wide range of art that has no religious significance, but is made by and for people who once lived, or who…

The stories of The Arabian Nights—stories within stories, and stories within stories within stories—are told in the voice of a beautiful young woman, Shahrazad, who will lose her life if the king loses interest in her nightly narratives.…

To the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims, the founder of their faith, the Prophet Muhammad, is history’s most significant figure. Born in 570 CE in the city of Mecca, on the Arabian Peninsula, Muhammad underwent a series of mystical…

The House of Wisdom in Baghdad stands as a symbol of the great synthesis of Greek science and philosophy, Indian mathematics, and Persian literature brought about by their translation into Arabic in the eighth century CE. Jim Al-Khalili details…

This ninety-minute film takes audiences on an epic journey across nine countries and over 1,400 years of history. It explores the richness of Islamic art in objects big and small, from great ornamented palaces and the play of light in monumental…