Articles
Words that Traced Footprints: Survey of Travel Writings
Travel narratives have become one of the most popular and acclaimed literary genres in the recent times with many notable writers giving their travel accounts about diverse lands. These narratives included descriptive accounts of geography, monuments, and customs of foreign lands each visited. A sheer number of books were published about foreign travels and adventurous […]
Ibn Battuta: In Frames and Pages
‘If I am to die, let it be on the roads to Makkah’ Ibn Battutta speaks as a young man. But to speak these words to us now, the great traveller needs the crutch of Ben Kingsly’s assertive voice. We hear the Academy won actor giving voice-over and, thereby, credence to Ibn Battutta. The context […]
Ramadan in the Farthest North
Disembark at the fog-shrouded, mountain-rimmed, Arctic-gateway harbor of Tromsø, Norway, walk along the cobbled main street with its wooden homes and shops painted bright reds, blues and yellows, and take a left just before the pet shop. There, next to the Natural Medicine Center, you will find Alnor Senter, a simple square building. The former […]
Nature and Environment in The Light of Quran
The emergence of humans on earth could not be viewed as sheer accidental as we look at things from the Quranic perspective. According to the Quran the creation of man is, as a matter of fact, the culmination of a well-defined divine scheme. Going further the Quran says that the entire Universe has been created […]
Reconciling Cat And Yusuf
How well I remember the sixties and the seventies, that singular musical era! Styles and genres mixed and mingled in an effervescence of creativity and non-conformism, in a search for meaning and renewal that was as singular as it could be troubling. In the London of July 1975 the songs of Cat Stevens could be […]
Edward Said and Music: Love, Text and Metaphor
Despite being a vibrant music critic, Edward Said is rarely remembered as such. His magnum Opus Orientalism has established him as an analyst of texts, which, though music is a text too, most of us associate with literature. It does not mean that Said has not written extensively about music; indeed he did. But no […]
Why Are Muslims So Boring?
For the last 25 years, my wife has been doing semi-voluntary work at a special school near where we live. It is a small school for pupils with physical disability or delicate health needs who need a structured and particularly supportive learning environment. Every year, the school holds a special assembly to celebrate the beginning […]
Modern Russian Islamic music traditions: History and relationships with Islamic regions
The relationships of Islamic music traditions in Russia and Islamic regions: Near and Middle East, Central Asia, have started from the 7th century. Since this time in the territory of Northern Caucasus has lived Arabian people, whose culture has rendered influence on local traditions.Derbent city in Dagestan has played the important role in spreading of Islamic traditions. […]
Thera hips around, We gonna hop
Wholesale destruction around someone can influence her in two ways: personally, the trauma can unsettle her; culturally she will begin venting anger to the trauma in a medium which she uses to express herself. This general statement regarding war and self-formation as well as war and creativity is eloquently expressed by YasinAlsalman, the hip-hop singer […]
Islam and Music
IT is often said that music is forbidden in Islam and this assertion is repeated by many contemporary Muslims as well as by orientalists. Yet, when one studies the Islamic world, either in its present form or during various stages of its history, one is startled by the presence of music in many of the […]
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