• Colour drawing of a staged theatrical scene framed by two symmetrical classical structures with niches containing gilded statues, flanked by trees. At the centre, a painted backdrop shows an island within an archipelago, with a visible settlement; in the foreground, a vessel approaches the shore. Four figures stand before the backdrop holding branches and other objects. The composition is enclosed within a thin rectangular gold border.
Challenging Cosmopolitanism

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…

Christianity in North Africa and West Asia

Mapping Christianity in North Africa and West Asia

This region, North Africa and West Asia, is where Christianity began, nearly 2,000 years ago. Many Christian communities today trace their histories back over the entire period. At the same time, there is no region in the world where Christians are more at risk of extinction, as civil wars, persecution and economic distress have resulted in a massive exodus of the Christian population. This volume documents that exodus while it is underway.

Nineteenth-Century Local Governance in Ottoman Bulgaria

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…

Utopia: A round-table discussion

Sir Thomas More (1477 – 1535) was the first person to write of a ‘utopia’, a word used to describe a perfect imaginary world. The term was first published in 1516, and became the short title of his book about an…

The Qur'an and the Just Society

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…

George Mackay Brown and the Scottish Catholic Imagination

What do you imagine when you think about great Catholic art? Perhaps you call to mind the gilded pages of illuminated medieval manuscripts and the glories of Renaissance painting and sculpture. Maybe you recall more recent cinematic masterpieces, such as…