Browse Resources

Orhan Pamuk delivered the lecture "My Father's Suitcase" at the ceremony awarding him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. The New Yorker Magazine reprinted the lecture by permission.

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.

Kamila Shamsie, author of Broken Verses, is interviewed by Helen Brown for The Telegraph in April 2005. She speaks about her novels and about the some of the characters and other aspects of Broken Verses.

Hisham Matar, author of In the Country of Men, was interviewed in 2007 by Nouri Gana of the University of California, Los Angeles about his childhood, contemporary literature, and his first novel. The interview is posted on Words Without Borders, a…

This brief video describes the Islamic arts of the book and book illustration in the form of miniature painting. Related primary resource: Ibn al-Nadim on the Transmission and Authorization of Books, The Qur'an on Paradise (image).

This brief video describes the arts of Islamic calligraphy, the artistic practice of handwriting based on the Arabic script. Related primary sources: The Qur'an on Paradise,Ibn al-Nadim on the Transmission and Authorization of Books.

He began dictation of this book, Kitab al-yaqut (The Book of the Gem) on Thursday, 29 Muharram in the year 326 (December 6, 937) in the principal mosque of Abu Ja’far’s city (Baghdad), from memory, without any books or notes, and he…

Overview From pre-Islamic poems to the contemporary novel, literature written in Arabic spans over fourteen centuries, several continents, and myriad local cultures and contexts. Although Arabic literature began during the Jāhilīyah (pre-Islamic…

10th century,Baghdad, Iraq Ibn al Nadim (ca. 932-990) in the Fihrist, or Catalogue of Books, mentions a book of Persian stories entitled Hazār Afsān, a tale of 200 stories in which Sheherezade tells a thousand nights of stories to…

Al-Jahiz, “The Disadvantages of Parchment” What is it to you that all my books are written on China paper or Khurasan paper? Explain why you have pressed on me the advantages of using parchment and urged me to write on hide, when you…

Goha Gives Thanks to Allah Goha once lost his donkey. He couldn’t find it anywhere. As he went around the town searching for it, he kept on saying, “Thanks be to Allah! Thanks be to Allah!” People were surprised to find him giving…

“The Crane and the Crab” A crane once dwelt upon a pleasant lake placed among little hills spread over with herbs and flowers. He lived upon such fish as he could catch, and for many years got plenty. But at length, becoming old and…

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…

Jalal al-Din Rúmí(1207–73), popularly known simply as Rúmí, was the greatest Sufi mystic and poet in the Persian language, famous for his lyrics and for his didactic epic Masnavi-yi Maʿnavi [Spiritual couplets],…