Browse Resources

As background to the locations described in Orhan Pamuk's novel Snow, readers can view a map of Turkey by the Central Intelligence Agency of the US Government and download it in pdf format.

As background to the locations described in Kamila Shamsie's novel Broken Verses, readers can view and download a map of Pakistan by the United Nations Cartographic Section in pdf format.

As background to the locations described in Hisham Matar's novel In the Country of Men readers can view and download a map of Libya by the United Nations Cartographic Section in pdf format.

As background to the locations described in House of Stone: a Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid, readers can view and download a map of Lebanon from the United Nations Cartographic Section website in pdf format. Note…

As background to the locations described in the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, readers can view and download a map of Iran from the United Nations Cartographic Section website in pdf format.

As background to the locations described in G. Willow Wilson's memoir The Butterfly Mosque, readers can view and download a map of Egypt from the United Nations Cartographic Section website in pdf format.

Successfully completing the hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca, is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Any Muslim whose circumstances permit is required to make hajj at least once in a lifetime. In earlier centuries, it was a dangerous and lengthy journey,…

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.

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.

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…

As Anthony Shadid (1968-2012) was renovating and restoring his ancestral home in Marjayoun, Lebanon, he arranged to record the construction and his reflections on the process. Ten videos were filmed by Katia Jarjoura and produced by Houghton Mifflin…

Anthony Shadid, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and author of House of Stone, was born September 26, 1968, in Oklahoma City, and died February 16, 2012 in Damascus, Syria of an asthma attack while covering events in Syria. The interview with his…

Gordon Stewart’s When Asia Was the World includes accounts of various travelers on land and sea. Among the travelers mentioned in the book, Xuanzang, Ibn Fadlan, Abraham bin Yiju, Ibn Battuta, Ma Huan, and Tomé Pires all traversed Indian…

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 expores the effect of geometric lines and curves on ornamental design in Islamic art, and illlustrates how they also characterize the timeless, breathtaking architecture of the Muslim world. Related primary resources: Al-Wansharisi…

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…

This brief video describes the forms, functions, features, and significance of the garden in Islamic societies, and the motif of gardens in various artistic genres. Related primary resources: The Qur'an on Paradise, Babur on the Construction of the…

The obligation to make the pilgrimage (known as the hajj) to Mecca, combined with the tradition of global trade in Muslim societies, makes international travel important in the lives of many Muslims. This brief video highlights the arts associated…

This brief video describes the structure, architecture and decoration of mosques and other religious buildings and discusses theirvariations in Muslim societies across geography and time. Related primary sources: The Qur'an on the Qibla,…

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.

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…

1517 Egypt incorporated into the Turkish Ottoman Empire. 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte's forces invade Egypt. British and Turkish forces defeat the French in 1801 and restore Ottoman rule of…

Unique among the world's great pilgrimages, the hajj is in many ways also the most important. Even compared to the ancient and highly developed international pilgrimage systems of Christianity and Hinduism, the hajj is remarkable in its doctrinal…

1909 Abdul Hamid, the last of the Ottoman sultans, is deposed. 1914-1918 Turkey allies with Germany in World War I, and former Ottoman provinces are divided as mandates among the victorious…

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…

1911-1912 Italy seizes Libya from the Ottoman Empire. Sanussi leader Omar al-Mukhtar begins insurgency against Italian rule. 1931 Italians mount military response, imprison rebels in concentration camps, and execute…

1904 – 1906 France and Spain carve out zones of influence. France and Spain control Moroccan ports and collect customs duty. 1912 With the Sultan as a figurehead, Morocco becomes a French protectorate administered by…