Islam
From the Archives: An Islamic Map for a Christian King
When we last left Sicily, the Roman Republic had taken Siracusa, which became the capital of Roman government in Sicily. The Romans held Sicily for 300 some years. The island was subsequently occupied by the Byzantine empire in 535 CE, Arabs from North Africa in 965 and the Normans in 1060. * Under the Normans,…
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From the Archives: The Blackbird Sings
Sometimes life makes it impossible to write blog posts on a dependable basis. This is one of the those times. For the next little while, I’m going to run pieces from September and October in years past. I hope you enjoy them, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. Next up, a post…
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Ottoman Dress and Design in the West
Those of you who have known me for a long, long time might remember that I once wrote a proposal for a book on how Islam influenced Western culture in fundamental ways.(1) Those of you who’ve known me even longer know that my dissertation was titled Building the Orient of the Imagination: Excess, Confusion…
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