The Basics The story of the East is written by the West, and no one else must write or document it without their blessing. The global travel photography industry is monoplised by a few Western institutions, and none more prestigious than National Geographic. An American organization founded in 1888, it runs annual photography competitions that…
The past decade and a half has seen a growing popularity of authors who write about the East, usually Muslim societies. These writers themselves live in the West, but have taken it upon themselves to explain the East and Islam to others in the West. With one bestseller following another, some writers have become celebrities…
A few months ago, I wrote an article titled The Erasure of Islam from the works of Rumi from English translations. This was in response to countless queries I was receiving to recommend a reliable translation, ideally one that was not by Coleman Barks. The response to this will always be the translations by Jawid…
Join me and Mokhtar Alkhanshali (historian, community historian and coffee innovator) as we follow the roots of Coffee from Ethiopia, Yemen to Makkah and then Istanbul and Europe. Mokhtar shares the intimate history of Coffee in Islam and its uses for the praise of God, its near ban and then its spread into Europe and…
Let’s talk about coffee, and in particular in Europe. Every time you sip a cup of coffee in London, you are participating in a ritual that stretches back 365 years to a muddy churchyard in the heart of the City of London. But coffee goes way back to the 15th century Yemen where it was…
Join me and @persianpoetics as we discuss the beautiful ‘Ghazal’, from its conception in Arabia to modern day America. Some mistake it as a sonnet, but no other language can match the depth and beauty of the Arabian and now Persian Ghazal. Notes from the podcast: The website mentioned for finding poetry is Ganjoor The…
Is there such a thing as Islamic Art and Architecture? What makes something Islamic? Is it the architect or artist who creates the form, or is it the bricklayer who places the bricks in a certain fashion or is it the land or time in which it is created? Or can such a rich and…
Poetry is dead, at least in the West. The Poetry genre barely moves any books each year but one man is an exception – Rumi. But if you have read Rumi in English, chances are high you have read an interpretation of his poetry that has this Muslim saints faith entirely removed.
Shiraz knows no parallel in all of Persia and the world. Sought by all but plucked by none, it remains a mole on the cheek of the most beautiful of Muslim lands. Shiraz has been saved it seems, most certainly by plan, to deliver to the thirsty, hungry and blind of this world – the endless stream of verses that flow in abundance from the lips of its poets and saints.
Join me and Omar in Old Cairo as we discuss the history of Islamic Cairo, from its Fatimid Shia foundations to its rule under Saladin, the Mamluks and finally the Ottomans.