A recent controversy at a small Midwestern university over the display of an Islamic painting depicting the Prophet Muhammad exposed deep disagreements within the Muslim American community on the permissibility or impermissibility of images of…
In Charles Taylor’s magnum opus, A Secular Age, he makes a series of wonderful distinctions about the pre-modern and modern worlds. Among these is the idea that modernity entails a loss of enchantment, a move…
While browsing through old journals we often encounter a name that repeats itself frequently enough to be noticed, yet buried away from the allure of the front page. Throughout many months and years, these semi-visible…
How do you engage with an ancient art form that continues to be practiced today? What does it mean for a contemporary artist to make use of sacred mathematical tools and techniques that are more…
The microscopically delicate floral and yellow gold designs demanded I draw so close as to almost breathe on them. As with the other fourteen tazhib (“illumination”) works in Behnaz Karjoo’s 2020 exhibit Immanence, “The Solace…
Introduction The marriage contract according to Islamic law is preceded by a khiṭbah (solicitation of marriage), is ratified at the behest of the ijāb and qubūl (the “offer” of marriage and the “acceptance” of the…
The recently concluded gay pride parade in downtown Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stirred much debate in the country and the region, and produced two clear winners in the deliberations: the official Islamic…
Preface Two of the highest modes of expression developed by humankind are poetry and philosophy. The poet speaks to us through verse, and the philosopher through prose, each one inviting us into their realm of…
Islam, like all religious identities, is both a way of knowing and a mode of practice. Racial identity is also a way of knowing and a mode of practice. In other words, like all identities,…
Editor’s note: Published originally on erminsinanovic.com, these two posts about coffee, Islam on the edges, and Muslim culture are being re-posted here with the permission of the author, Ermin Sinanovic. (Jump to The Love of…