• Close up image of a large blueish buoy, engraved with images of people preparing fish.

A picture of Baghdad

Writing about the People of Iraq

by Catherine Cobham and Fabio Caiani 23 March 2023 marked the twentieth anniversary of the attack on Iraq. Predictably, western mainstream media made little or no reference to contemporary Iraqi culture. Recently, however, there has been a growing interest in…

Introducing From Rumi to the Whirling Dervishes

by Walter Feldman Love is the Way and the Path of our Prophet. We are Love’s children, and Love is our Mother. Rumi These words echo down through the ages from when Mevlana (”Our Master”) Jalaluddin Rumi (d. 1273), first…

What are Tribes? Do They Still Matter?

by Scott Weiner What is a tribe? Social scientists have long been interested in tribes, but political science has struggled to talk about them. Tribes exist on every inhabited continent and are as foundational to many states as political parties,…

Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology

by Ramon Harvey Ramon Harvey introduces his approach to Islamic theology in his new book Transcendent God, Rational World: A Māturīdī Theology. Thinking today has become dizzying. Attention spans are diminished. No sooner does someone have an idea, but it…