A Methodist in Palestine
In 1904 the proud D.D. Methodist Robert William van Schroik, at the age of 61, boarded a German steamer in New York for a 70-day trip to the…
Tag: Islam and Christianity
Picturing Palestine
This is a fabulous new book from the University of California Press discussing photographs from late 19th and early 20th century Palestine from seven notebooks by Wasif Jawhariyyeh…
Goethe, as West embraces East
There is an interesting article on Qantara about the significance of the German poet Goethe’s famous West-Östliche Divan, first published 1819. To read an English translation, click here.
A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #3
Dervish; photograph by Sevryugin Anton (1830 – 1933), the official photographer of the Imperial Court of Iran In the early 19th century there was a florescence of Protestant…
A Wolff in Shepherd’s Clothing, #2
In the early 19th century there was a florescence of Protestant missionary interest in saving Muslim, Jewish and other kinds of Christian souls in the Middle East. This…
If only Abraham had known …
The Sacrifice of Abraham, by Andrea del Sarto, ca. 1527-1528 A fable, dedicated to Mark Twain and all who really understand what it means to suffer Abraham was…
The Post-Ottoman Century: A View from 1917
The last Ottoman sultan, Mehmet VI, leaving his palace in Istanbul in 1922 The Ottoman Empire, firmly established after the conquest of Constantinople cum Istanbul in 1453 lasted…
The Brussels attack and liberal Islamophobia
“WICHITA, KS – MARCH 5: A group of Muslim students take selfies before Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a speech at a campaign rally on March 5,…
Muslims in Medieval France
Early Medieval Muslim Graves in France: First Archaeological, Anthropological and Palaeogenomic Evidence Yves Gleize , Fanny Mendisco , Marie-Hélène Pemonge, Christophe Hubert, A…
People of the Book: Why not the Book of Love?
by Daniel Martin Varisco, MENA Tidningen As an undergraduate I attended Wheaton College in Illinois, an interdenominational evangelical Protestant enclave, from which I obtained a quality education. …
Donald Trump and P. T. Barnum
My latest post from Lund…
Why it (Still) Makes Little Sense to Call ISIS Islamic
A member of ISIS poses in a fighter jet similar to those used in the Prophet’s time. By Haroon Moghul, Religion Dispatches, August 24, 2015 Last week, The…
Voltaire on Tolerance
The author of Candide knew that this was not the best of all possible worlds. But Voltaire has sound advice about the importance of tolerance, written over two…
The Bridge over Islamophobia
John Esposito at the Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the Walsh School of Foreign Service has just provided a unique website to chart the pace of islamophobia…