Islam 101: General Information | Literature | Art and Architecture
In the News | Sufism | Modern Egyptian History
Egypt: Media and Newspapers

To learn more about topics of interest in the Islamic Middle East and Contemporary Egypt, explore the links listed below.

Islam 101: General Information about the faith

If you have questions about the Qur'an as a text, in translation, its meaning, etc., check out Holy Quran Resources on the Internet. Just scroll down until you find what you're looking for.

Links to maps showing the spread of Islam since the seventh century can be found at the University of Pennsylvania's website.

IslamicWorld.net is a good place to begin your search for all things Muslim.

About Islam & Muslims is a public service site sponsored by an association of Muslim university students in the UK.

The Al-Islam Page features Islamic resources, information, verses/hadiths for the day, calendars, dictionary, ‘Discover Islam’, and prayer timer.

IslamiCity.com's Five Pillars of Islam gives an overview of the 5 pillars of Islam. Under "prayer" you can find translation of the call to prayer (adhan) and a link to hear it using Real Audio. Under "pilgrammage," there is a link to a hajj site that offers a large amount of additional material on the hajj. There you may play the ABC Nightline video on an American convert's experience of the hajj recorded by ABC (the video is well regarded by Muslims).

Popular Islamic scholar Yahia bin Sharaful-Deen An-Nawawi has gathered The Forty Traditions of An-Nawawi. C&T Professor James McGrath has gathered a list of links having to do with the Hadith and An-Nawawi.

Internet Islamic History Sourcebook offers a nice TOC from which to choose an area of interest.

Hadith Database: Submit a query and the database retrieves a relevant hadith (Bukhari, Muslim and other hadith collections)!

Calligraphy & Arabic Writing are explored in a four part article entitled "The Art of Arabic Calligraphy." Note that the illustrations of the alphabet, Kufic, and Cursive script can be clicked to get an enlarged view. Explanatory text and illustrations are included.

The Islamic Calendar Conversion site will convert any western (Gregorian) date to an Islamic date and vice-versa. The Islamic calendar's zero date is the hagira of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 A.D. Because the Islamic year is a lunar year, it is shorter than the western solar year. Therefore you CANNOT simply add or subtract 622 years to convert between Muslim and western dates.

The Islamic Calendar main page provides a summary of major Islamic festival dates for the next several years. Sub-pages take you to western annual calendars with Islamic equivalent dates, and to Islamic year calendars with western equivalents. At this site you can also find a lot of information on the calendar, date conversion, prayer schedule, and Qibla direction.

Ummah.net is "a humble effort to provide services for the Muslim community world wide. As well as anyone looking of information on Islam." Check it out to see topics of interest within the Islamic community.

If you're looking for a portal to all things Islamic, including news and discussions, try musalman.com.

On January 3rd, 2004, the Association of American Law Schools, the American Society of Comparative Law, and the Law and Society Association sponsored a Workshop on Islamic Law. Workshop materials are still availale at their websi

Sharia-compliant banking and finance precludes the earning of interest. The article at this site provides information about Islamic funding structures and financing vehciles that work within Sharia guidelines.

Literature

The Nobel organization (those of the prizes in literature, economics, peace, etc.) has a lovely write-up about Palace Walk author Naguib Mahfouz entitled "The Son of Two Civilizations."

Samia Serageldin has her own website dedicated to her text The Cairo House.

Azar Nafisi's memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, excerpted here, provides readers with an intimate look at Iran (from the revolution to the present) through the eyes of an American-educated Iranian literature professor. Prof. Nafisi will be at Butler for a C&T convocation on November 17.

Art and Architecture

The Dome of the Rock is one of the ‘required’ art pieces for the C&T Islam unit. Here you'll find four views of the Shrine of Umar on the temple Mount in Jerusalem (numbered 1 - 4). The first is black and white, the others are color. The first three images are exterior views, the 4th is an internal view:#1; #2; #3; #4.

Mecca Grand Mosque & Hajj, a CNN special four-part report on the 1998 Hajj by correspondent Riz Khan (on line video).

The Grand Mosque of Mecca with Kabah is a required C&T art piece. (Click any of the thumbnails for larger views.)

Other Meccan sites including those related to the Hajj.

Islamic mosques often reflect the pre-Islamic culture in which they were built. For a quick comparative look at different stylds of Islamic structural architecture, check out this Koutabya site.

The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third most holy site in Islam, is located to the south of the shrine of Omar at the south end of the Herodian temple mount platform.

The Prophet’s Mosque (originally his home) in Medina is the second most holy site in Islam.

Other Islamic Images and Clipart (a sampling).

Islam in the News

For a library of Islamic websites/media resources and online news, take a look at Talk Islam.

Religion Review is an online news magazine exploring prominent religions around the world, and is, therefore, not limited to news within Islamic community.

FarsiNews provides news stories of relevance to Iran, Iranians and Persians around the globe.

Sufism

Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi: Click "poems" for more Rumi poems, and "the ceremony" for explanation and illustration of the whirling/turning dance (the "they whirl" link doesn't work). From the ceremony page, click "more whirling" at the bottom for additional information and illustrations.

For poems, information on whirling, and a host of other information, check out the Rumi Network site.

Khamush.com offers a very unobtrusive site highlighted by Rumi poems and quotes, as well as links to information about sufism, a Rumi bibliography and reflections on the poetry.

Rumi on Fire also offers poetry and biographic information, but this site really sets itself apart with its picture gallery. It's worth a look.

The Threshold Society's site offers educational opportunities for people of all faiths interested in learning more about Sufism.

All things Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi...

Modern Egyptian History

From the Internet History Sourcebook: The Middle East Since 1914 (Egypt)

The Egyptian Revolution of 1952, as seen detailed by Egyptian writer Abd ar-Rahman ar-Rafai.

Egypt: Media & Newspapers

ArabicNews.com is a daily online news site for Egypt and all of the Arab World.

EgyptDaily.com: An Egyptian daily online newspaper.

Cairo Business: Cairo's "source for regional business news."

And, for an extensive list of media throughout Egypt, check out World Press Review's Egypt listings.

China Links | Back to Fall