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Leila Golestane Austin offers an annotated bibliography of further resources for the Literary Reflections theme.

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.

In the aftermath of 9/11and the democratic uprisings of the Arab Spring, a host of news anchors, political pundits, and scholars have sought to explain the role of religion in “the Muslim world.” Many Americans seeking to educate…

MinaretIslam is often seen as either a cultural or a political phenomenon. In what ways does Najwa’s faith defy these easy categorizations?Minaretmight be read as a critique of Sudanese patriarchy, as every man in Najwa’s life seems to…

Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem GirlhoodHudud, or the “sacred frontier,” is defined by Fatima Mernissi’s father as necessary because “harmony exists when each group respects the prescribed limit of the other; trespassing…

SnowAs a returning exile, Ka’s nostalgia for the homeland puts him in an optimistic state of mind. Does he remain in this mood throughout his stay in Kars?Is his involvement in the affairs of Kars a miscalculation on his part?In Snow, Orhan…

Conference of the BirdsHow does the hoopoe become leader of the birds?Is he a competent leader?How do you interpret the excusesthe birds come up with for avoiding the perilous journey to find the Simorgh?Which of the hoopoe's stories do you most…

The Arabian NightsHow would you categorize these stories: moral tales, fables, fantasies, adventure, or a mix of these?Which aspects of these stories most interests you: the human or the supernatural?Describe the roleswomen play in these stories.…

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.

Although there are no reliable statistics on the number of Muslims currently living in the West, a 1986 estimate placed about twenty-three million Muslims in Europe. The majority lived in the Balkans and southeastern Europe; they were Slavic converts…

There are today more than fifty Muslim states, extending from the Atlas Mountains in the West to the Malay Archipelago in the East, and from Sub-Saharan Africa to the steppes of Central Asia. They include some of the most populous countries in the…

In its most common usage, the term harem refers to the section of a house where a Muslim leader's wives live. More broadly, a harem serves as the quarters restricted to female members of a family. The term also refers to the women themselves. The…

This entry contains three subentries: ROLE AND STATUS OF WOMEN WOMEN'S RELIGIOUS OBSERVANCES WOMEN LIVING UNDER MUSLIM LAWS Role and Status of Women The Qurʿān, Islam's holy book, changed women's status considerably from that of the…

This entry contains four subentries: SūFī THOUGHT AND PRACTICE SūFī ORDERS SūFī SHRINE CULTURE SUFISM AND POLITICS ṢūfĪ Thought and Practice Sufism can be described broadly as the intensification of Islamic faith and practice, or…

One of the successor states created from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire after World War I, Turkey became the first secular state in the Muslim world. The new state was declared a republic in October 1923 after the defeat of the Greek army and of…

A North African country about the size of California, Morocco has existed as an Islamic region since the 700s. Its local name, al-Maghrib, means “sunset,” after the ancient Arabic name for North Africa, Bilad al-Maghrib (Lands of Sunset).…

Persian Literature until 1990 Persian literature is a body of poetic and other literary works created principally in Iran. Afghanistan, the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia, and Turkey also have been home to a rich literature written in…

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…

Bilād al-Sūdān means “lands of the Blacks” in Arabic. It is a generic term for sub-Saharan Islamic Africa (also known as the Sahel) and has been the name of the modern nation since 1898. Islam entered Sudan in the sixteenth century…

This article is about the feminism, or feminisms, which Muslim women have created around the world from the late nineteenth century to the twenty-first century. Muslim and non-Muslim women in the East and West were among the originators of feminism.…

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…

Ísá ibn Hishám related to us and said: “I turned aside with a few of my friends to the front of a tent to ask hospitality from its occupants, and there came out to us a portly little man and asked: 'Who are you?' We…

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…

A key scene in a Persian epic poem is illustrated in a 400-year-old watercolor from the holdings of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This miniature illustrates the manuscript Mantiq al-Tayr (The Language of the Birds, also known as The Conference of…

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…

As background to the locations described in Dreams of Trespass, the memoir of Fatima Mernissi's childhood in Morocco, readers can view and download a map of Morocco from the United Nations Cartographic Section website in pdf format.

To The Countess of Mar, Adrianople [now Edirne], April 18, 1717 ….I was invited to dine with the Grand Vizier's lady, and it was with a great deal of pleasure I prepared myself for an entertainment which was never given before to any…

Because Muslim women in Egypt have controlled their property, or rather because some of the wealthy women controlled their property, we find women as well as men setting up charitable endowments which are known as awqaf [plural]. A waqf [singular] is…