By the eleventh century the community founded in the seventh century by the Prophet Muḥammad had split into several religious groups. The umma as a single, unified community, had become a political fiction. The Abbasid ...

On the 30th of August 2006 Naǧīb Maḥfūẓ died-a legend and symbol of modern Arabic literature, so far the only Noble Prize winner (1988) in that field. For decades he had enriched literature with new novels, short stories ...

At the advent of the twentieth century, Egypt was subjected to different cultural currents the most prominent of which was the emergence of the “Dīwān Group” who shook off the bases of the traditional poetry with the ideas ...

The Qur’ān is ample of verses that hint at or deal with some of the events which faced Muḥammad and the community (al-umma) at Medina; and it may be noticed that, of all its chapters, the one entitled as Sūrat at-tawba ...

The work Kitāb al-maḥāsin wa-al-masāwī (The Book of Virtues and Vices) by Ibrāhīm Ibn Muḥammad al-Bayhaqī illustrates the existence of widely developed beggary in the 10th century. There is scarce information about the ...

The Arabs, who have lived in deserts for centuries, obviously owe a lot of the good and the bad to it. From time immemorial-from the “deepest” ǧāhiliyya (the epoch of the pre-Islamic unawareness)-utterly set into the desert ...

Kissinger followed a unique policy in his mediation efforts between the Arabs and Israel by eliciting proposals from each side, getting preliminary reactions, identifying obstacles and then starting the diplomatic process ...

‘Alī ‘Abd Allāh Ḫalīfa is one of the most eminent of contemporary poets in Bahrain. This small Gulf state has become the homeland for many excellent poets including Ṭarafa Ibn al-‘Abd-the author of the longest mu‘allaqa ...

Zwischen mantischen also wahrsagerischen Methoden unterscheidet man: natürliche und künstliche Wahrsagerei. Die erste beruht darauf, daß man die direkt, von Gott und übernatürlichen Kräfte stammenden Signale übernimmt und ...

Państwa Globalnego Południa – mimo wspólnej nazwy – już od dawna nie stanowią jednorodnej grupy. W zróżnicowany sposób reagują na wyzwania, które niesie ze sobą globalizacja i gospodarka światowa. Niektóre potrafią włączyć ...