Research Guides: Islamic History & Religion: Art, Science, Women's Issues

Women's Issues

The Butterfly Mosque by G. Willow Wilson
Call Number: BP170.5.W55 W55 2010b
Publication Date: 2010
G. Willow Wilson was an all-American girl and the daughter of atheists. As a writer specializing in modern religion and the Middle East, at 27 years of age she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course. She relates strongly to the Qur'an, which leads her to convert to Islam, and to journey to the Middle East. She moves to Cairo, Egypt, to teach English and to immerse herself in the culture of her new religion. There she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of Western influences. They fall in love, but their relationship tests their values, beliefs, and traditions.
Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood by Fatima Mernissi
Call Number: CT2678.M47 A3 1995
ISBN: 9780201489378
Publication Date: 1995
Fatima Mernissi describes growing up in a domestic harem. Through the women of the harem, deprived of access to the outside world, she provides a picture of gender and sex in her Muslim culture.
Minaret by Leila Aboulela
Call Number: PR6051.B68 M56 2005
Publication Date: 2005
In her youth Najwa was an upper-class, westernized Sudanese, with dreams to marry well and raise a family. Her dreams ended when a military coup drove her and her family to political exile in London.
A Quiet Revolution: the Veil's Resurgence, from the Middle East to America by Leila Ahmed
Call Number: BP190.5.H44 A46 2011
ISBN: 9780300181432
Publication Date: 2011
Explains the veils' and headscarves' resurgence, from Egypt through Saudi Arabia and into the West, and provides a portrait of contemporary Islam.

Art

Islamic Arts by Jonathan Bloom and Sheila S. Blair
Call Number: N6260 .B57 1997
ISBN: 9780714831763
Publication Date: 1997
This comprehensive survey highlights the characteristics that connect the various arts of all the Islamic lands. Art serves as a window into Islamic culture. Architecture, books, and applied arts reveal the essence of Islamic culture. Illustrated throughout with photographs, maps, and plans.
The Art of Hajj by Venetia Porter
Call Number: N6260 .P67 2012
ISBN: 9781566568845
Publication Date: 2012
According to the Qur’an, Muslims should undertake the annual spiritual pilgrimage—the Hajj—to the holy city of Mecca that at least once in their lives. There, within a sanctuary, lies the Ka’ba, a cube of black granite that is the literal center of a Muslim’s world and the compass point towards which daily prayers are made. This book takes the reader on a journey, and celebrates the skill and creativity of artists, craftspeople, and the pilgrims themselves who have responded to the call of Hajj over the centuries. It presents an array of objects and images, from the 7th to the 21st centuries, including illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and photographs, calligraphy, textiles, scientific instruments, decorative tiles, maps, ceramics, metalwork, and powerful works by contemporary artists.
Islamic Art: Mirror of the Invisible World [videorecording] by a film by Robert Gardner; a co-production of Unity Productions Foundation and Gardner Films
Call Number: DVD 0300
Publication Date: 2011
This 90-minute documentary transports viewers over nine countries and across 1,400 years of cultural history to reveal the astonishing riches of Muslim arts, crafts, and architecture. Exploring distant locations and many rare pieces of art, the film illuminates the history of a global culture, reflecting the Islamic world as it developed over centuries and as it is today

Ottoman Fabric

In the Ottoman Empire silk textiles and carpets were produced by royal factories as well as commercial factories. The designs of the Ottoman Court style featured flowers, jagged leaves, and scrolls. The Ottoman fabric below is in the collection of the Bargello National Museum in Florence, Italy.

Ottoman Fabric. Fine Art. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 27 Feb 2013. <http://quest.eb.com/images/135_856818>

Science

The House of Wisdom: How Arabic science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us the Renaissance by Jim Al-Khalili
Call Number: Q127.A5 A4 2011
ISBN: 9781594202797
Publication Date: 2011
British-Iraqi physicist Jim Al-Khalili unveils the Arabic legacy of science and philosophy by returning to its roots in the Arab innovation that would advance science and jump-start the European Renaissance. Inspired by the Koranic injunction to study closely all of God's works, rulers throughout the Islamic world funded armies of scholars who gathered and translated Persian, Sanskrit, and Greek texts. From the ninth through the fourteenth centuries, these scholars built upon those foundations a scientific revolution that bridged the one-thousand-year gap between the ancient Greeks and the European Renaissance.

Islamic manuscript showing astronomers at work

Islamic Manuscript Showing Astronomers At Work. Photography. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 27 Feb 2013. <http://quest.eb.com/images/151_2526495>

Dome of the Rock

According to the book Islamic Arts (see above), the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem is known as the first work of Islamic architecture. This Muslim shrine is built over the sacred stone from which the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.

Dome Of The Rock. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica Image Quest. Web. 27 Feb 2013. <http://quest.eb.com/images/139_1904578>