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Originality and Artistic Impulse: From a Medieval Scottish Friar to Malevich’s Black Square
Read more: Originality and Artistic Impulse: From a Medieval Scottish Friar to Malevich’s Black SquareIs there any such thing as a new idea? Bryony Coombs discusses similarities in artistic expression, centuries apart.
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…
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…
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…
Judging a book by its cover: designing ‘The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy’
Can the contents of an academic book be expressed by means other than words? In centuries past, it was common for a book to have a lavishly illustrated cover which, through signs and symbols, informed the prospective reader what the…
The Woman on Westminster Bridge
A woman walks across a bridge. She is looking at her mobile. She seems to be in a hurry. Close to her, a person lies injured on the pavement. Several people attend to the injured person. The woman is wearing…
Muslims in Scotland: Demographic, social and cultural characteristics
By Stefano Bonino First published on the LSE Religion and the Public Sphere blog – read the original article Far removed from the cinematic and media depictions of Muslims as angry and threatening fundamentalists are the everyday experiences of many…
Images of Islam
By Deanna Ferree Womack Images of Islam abound these days, and many of them are troubling. Those who speak loudly and most forcefully define Islam in the narrowest of terms, making one image – the militant extremist – into a…
Contemporary Muslims and the Challenge of Modernity(ies)
So when will Islam undergo a reformation? When will Muslims catch up with modernity and join the 21st century? Why is Islam such a violent religion (while others are supposedly so peaceful)? Why are Muslim women so oppressed? When will…
The New Islamic Presence in Europe: Perspectives from Ireland
Western Europe experienced the immigration of people from a Muslim background after World War II who settled in countries like France, Britain or Germany to fill the labour shortage and made important contributions to the economic recovery of Western European…