• Portraits of Madame Celeste, Carlotta Leclercq and Rose Leclercq side by side

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…

Photograph of Westminster Bridge and the Houses of Parliament

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…

Contemporary Turkey in Conflict

Contemporary Turkey in Conflict

By Tahir Abbas Turkey is a beguiling country. It straddles one of the most important geopolitical fault lines in the world. Since the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the republican era, however, the nation has undergone…

Islamic Thought in China

“There are Muslims in China?  I didn’t know that.”  Yes, indeed, there are—possibly as many as 25-30 million souls—and they constitute a fascinating segment of two vital world entities, “China” and “Islam.”  Almost half of them speak Chinese as their…

What do Monks and Friars have in common?

By Eva Pascal What do Buddhist monks and Christian friars have in common? Quite a bit, in fact. While travelling widely across Asia in the late sixteenth century, Franciscans had rich encounters and exchanges with Buddhist monks that led them…

Deanna Womack

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…