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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.

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…

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…

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…

1947 British colonial rule ends with partition of the subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan and East Pakistan. Pakistan and India dispute boundaries of mountainous region of Kashmir.…

As background to Leila Aboulela's novel Minaret, readers can link to and download the United Nations Cartographic Section maps of the Sudan and South Sudan as pdfs. Note that the Sudan and South Sudan were not yet divided during the period in which…

1871-1874 Turkish and Egyptian forces conquer the territory of today’s Sudan. 1881-1885 Muhammed Ahmad declares himself al-Mahdi, or awaited guide, and begins reconquest of Sudan. Mahdi’s forces capture…

550-330 B.C.E. Achaemenid dynasty rules the first Persian Empire. The city of Persepolis, was founded in 518 B.C.E. 1914-1918 Iran declares neutrality during World War I. 1923–1926 Reza Khan is named…

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…

Timeline: Number of Captives Embarked and Disembarked per Year, 1525-1867

The stories of numerous Muslim individuals who were brought as slaves to the United States are available in state and national archives. Omar ibn Said, Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima, Nicholas Said, and Mahommah Gardo Bacquaqua are among those who are the…

For information related to narratives of Muslim slaves transported to the Americas between 1514 and 1866,The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database comprises nearly 35,000 individual slaving expeditions. Records of the voyages have been found in…

The map of the volume and direction of the transatlantic slave trade pinpoints the place in the Gulf of Mexico where Abdurrahman ibn Sori, the subject of Prince Among Slaves, disembarked as one individual in the flow of slaves from all regions of…

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…

English text: The foregoing copy of the Lord’s Prayer was written by Prince Abduhl Rahhuman in Arabic, at my request and in my presence on the 29th day of December 1828 in Philadelphia, at which time and place he related to me in detail the…

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…