Browse Resources

According to the Qur'an, a mosque is God's “sacred house,” a setting for Muslims to perform rituals, and a “meeting place for the people.” The term mosque derives from the Arab word masjid, meaning a “place for (ritual)…

Muslim life in America is summarized in a U.S. State Department booklet. The booklet was published by the State Department and the Bureau of International Information Programs (a State Department agency) in 2009. It includes profiles of American…

The percentage of Muslims in each U.S. county is shown in a 2010 map. Concentrations range from 5 percent in a few counties to 0 percent, reported in most counties. It should be noted, however, that the data used for this map was collected through…

Cities of Light: The Rise and Fall of Islamic Spain is a documentary film and companion website. Inspired by Rosa Maria Menocal’s Ornament of the World, the documentary explores the European society in which Muslims, Jews and Christians lived…

Raised on a site sacred to three great faiths, the Dome of the Rock is an elaborate, architecturally significant domed shrine built over a large rock believed to be the site from which Muhammad ascended to heaven during the Night Journey, ca. 621 CE.…

Rivaling the Hagia Sophia for architectural splendor, the Süleymaniye Mosque was built in the sixteenth century CE for the sultan known as Süleyman the Magnificent, ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566. The mosque, in Istanbul, is…

Information on the more than 2,000 U.S. mosques is provided in The American Mosque 2011. Ihsan Bagby, associate professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Kentucky, has surveyed American mosques and their communities with the support of the…

“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…

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…