According to recent news, the President of Turkey has converted Istanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. His decision is highly controversial, given Hagia Sophia’s reputation as a major monument of human history. Here is the historical,...

Zarina Hashmi (16 July 1937 – 25 April 2020), was an Indian-American artist and printmaker based in New York City. She was known by her professional name, Zarina. Her works include drawings, prints, and sculptures. She used abstract...

The Ottoman Empire was an exotic realm filled with sheikhs, silks, and saffron. During the 16th and 17th centuries, it reached the height of its powers and extended into several continents, crossing nations and languages. It encompassed the...

Mehr-un-Nissa was an influential woman of the Mughal era, well-known for her great beauty, unmatched intelligence, and volatile temper. As a woman in the 1600s, the tale of her rise to power and prominence is unique and noteworthy. After...

The bright blue-green Turquoise has been valued and revered for centuries by all the cultures around the world that had access to it. Several original sources of the stone are now long gone, having been mined to remove...

The 17th century world map from an Ottoman book on the discovery of the Americas “Tarih-i Hind-i Garbi” (“History of the West Indies”) points Mecca and the Kaaba as the centre of the world. Indeed, the centrality of...

Granada, a Moorish Stronghold The fall of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 marked the end of the Reconquista and the ultimate collapse of al-Andalus, the Islamic territory that had stretched across the Iberian...