-
Hermann Gross: a protean German Expressionist artist who chose to live and work in the north of Scotland
Read more: Hermann Gross: a protean German Expressionist artist who chose to live and work in the north of ScotlandRobin Jackson explores the life and extraordinary range of work of 20th century German artist Hermann Gross
7 things you may not know about the history of Muslims in Central Asia
By Galina M. Yemelianova 1) There are both narrow and broad notions of Central Asia. The narrow one relates to the 5 Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan, which until 1991 were part of the Soviet…
Blogging From Egypt: Digital Literature, 2005-2016
Since 2005, blogging has become a significant trend amid Egyptian young people. Among the many blog entries published online every day, some stand out for their innovative literary features and original contents. So far, a number of bloggers, such as…
Afghanistan – Themes and Variations
As it enters its second year of publication, Warwick Ball reflects on the emerging themes and (accidental) article pairings in both the October 2018 and April 2019 issue of Afghanistan, the new journal of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies.…
Translating ‘The Sorrowful Muslim’s Guide’ – a labour of love
When we first thought about translating The Sorrowful Muslim’s Guide by Hussein Ahmad Amin, it was not just because the book had generated so much heated discussion locally as well as regionally in the Arab world. Nor that the book is…
Challenging Cosmopolitanism
The temptation to look longingly to idealised visions of Islamic cosmopolitanism as the antithesis to the militant communal solidarity associated with contemporary groups, such as the Islamic State (IS), can be quite powerful. Many scholars and popular writers have pointed…
Ninteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria
An account of how bureaucratic procedures created the space for political conflict and slander in nineteenth-century Ottoman Bulgaria and what can we learn from studying them. Why would a district head administrator arrest mules, or someone slander a governor with…
Warwick Ball on the cultural diversity of Afghanistan
It is a pleasure to see the launch of the first issue of Afghanistan, a journal to showcase the country’s exceptional cultural diversity. It is the first scholarly journal devoted to the country since the demise of Afghan Studies in…
7 things you should know about the destruction of graves in the Islamic world
By Ondrej Beranek and Pavel Tupek 1) Over the past years and decades, various parts of the Islamic world – from Iraq, Syria, Mali and Tunisia, to Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Bangladesh – have faced virulent attacks targeting…
The Qur’an and the Just Society
I was standing in a library aisle in the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, my neck craning to read titles dropping vertically down the spines of books. A familiar experience for many students, even if it is being…