Browse Resources

Deborah Amos offers an annotated bibliography of further resources for the Points of View theme.

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.

In a 2011 survey of Muslim Americans conducted by the Pew Research Center, respondents cited negative views about Muslims as the single greatest challenge facing their community. This is hardly an unfamiliar finding. Many other immigrant communities…

Islam in Africa to 1800 Islam moved into Africa from three directions. It came from North Africa across the Sahara to Bilad al-Sudan (The Lands of the Black People), which is between the Atlantic Ocean and Lake Chad. Despite six centuries of…

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…

Calling themselves Osmanlis, after tribal chieftain Osman I, the Ottomans were Turks from Central Asia. They created a vast empire that encompassed southeastern Europe to northern Hungary, the Middle East to Iran, and most of the North African coast.…

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…

Communication has been an instrumental and integral part of Islam since its inception as a religio-political movement. Over the centuries, Islamic culture and civilization have been influential in the development of three major pillars of human…

Communication patterns in the Islamic world have undergone considerable change since the advent of broadcasting in the twentieth century. When broadcasting systems were introduced to many parts of the world between 1910 and 1930, only a few Islamic…

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Islāmī Jumhūrīya-e Pākistān), with a population of 164 million (2006 estimate), is the second largest Muslim state in the world, after Indonesia. Although they belong to five distinct ethnic…

Iranians have always called their country Iran (Land of the Aryans, “noble people”), but outsiders long used “Persia” (Parsa; Gk., Persis), referring to Pars, now Fars, a southern province. “Persia” remained in use…

In Lebanon 's remarkably diverse society, eighteen separate sects or confessional groups are recognized within the political system. In addition to a variety of Christian sects, which account for no more than 35 percent of the country 's…

Libya is an oil-rich country that shares borders with Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan, Chad, and Niger. Its population of more than 5 million is of mixed Arab-Berber ancestry, and an overwhelming majority of Libyans are Sunni Muslims. Historically,…

The dynastic building traditions for communal structures that serve the Muslim population are richly varied, but domestic architecture is even more richly textured, varying by region, time, and communal group. Regardless of the specific shape, scale,…

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…

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…

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.

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…

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…