Islam
What Makes a Mosque, Pt. 2: Suleyman the Magnificent Builds A Mosque
Commissioning a mosque was both an act of piety and a political statement in the Ottoman empire. Surrounded by building complexes that provided social services ranging from a public fountain to a caravanserai, mosques anchored new neighborhoods in old cities. Who commissioned what was carefully linked to social status. Small officials commissioned small mosques. Grand…
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What Makes a Mosque? Part One
Glazed tiles, soaring minarets and a central dome don’t make a mosque, any more than a steeple makes a church. In the early days of Islam, when Muslims numbered in the dozens, Mohammed’s followers prayed together in the open courtyard outside his house in Medina. Once the numbers of the faithful grew a little larger,…
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Two Poets, Eight Centuries, One Poetic Masterpiece
Save Edward Fitzgerald’s translation of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam is one of those books that some scholars love to be snotty about. Literary critics of a certain stamp dismiss it as bad poetry, apparently on the grounds that people love it who don’t otherwise read poetry.* Persian linguists rightly point out that Fitzgerald’s translation…
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