Through his art and his travels, 19th-century French Romantic painter Eugène Delacroix sought to understand the chaos of an era he called ‘the century of unbelievable things.’
A 16th century chart of Europe and North Africa.
Luis Texieira, Portolan Chart, Lisbon, ca. 1600 via Wikimedia Commons.
Migration is central to Mediterranean history and people have always moved between its two shores.
Under a canopy of Turkish flags, supporters of Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) attend an election rally in Gaziantep, eastern Turkey.
Presidency Press Service via AP, Pool
Turkey’s snap election is on Sunday. One fact is clear: The candidates and electorate are both nationalist and pious. That’s in contrast to the strict secularism of 20th century politics.
Building features can be analyzed in the same way that facial recognition software works, revealing previously hidden elements of history.
Could a North-African migrant become the Prime minister of a European country in the 21st century? In the 19th century, a Greek slave rose to the highest ranks in Tunis. The Bey of Tunis, Muhammad Sādiq Bāšā-Bey, greets Napoleon III in Algiers, on 20 September 1860.
A. de Belle Ksar Saïd Museum
Muslims throughout the world will celebrate the holiday of Eid al-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) beginning this Friday evening. Here’s an introduction to this important feast.
Syrian Christians and Muslims offer prayers for nuns held by rebels, at the Greek Orthodox Mariamiya Church in Damascus, Syria, in 2013.
AP Photo
For many centuries, Syrian society has included people of many faiths – Sunni and Shi'i Muslims, Christians and Druze. This past is important to know to understand the present.
The European union and Turkey cannot afford to further strain their relationship.
Vera Kratochvi/PublicDomain
The integration of Turkey into the European Union could have embodied a counter-discourse to the so-called ‘Clash of Civilisations’. Perhaps it is not too late.
Donald Trump flanked by two of his children, Ivanka and Donald Jr.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
A political scientist looks at the similarities between the new American president and the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. What might the parallels portend for US politics?
Democracy saved Erdogan from the coup attempt. Can he use it to solve the Kurdish crisis?
Osman Orsal/Reuters
A scholar who grew up in Turkey explains the important role Turkey’s academics play and why, following the recent coup, the government went after them.
The Sykes-Picot Agreement was the result of secret deliberations between British civil servant Mark Sykes and French diplomat François Georges-Picot.
Wikimedia Commons
The Sykes-Picot Agreement created the modern Middle East. It represents one of the first installments in a long line of modern European – and subsequent American – meddling in the region.
In seeking to understand the roots of Islamic State, we’ve tried to spread the net wide, but make no claim to being comprehensive or having the final word.
Reuters/Stringer; David Wise/Flickr; Reuters/Stringer; EPA/Sanjeev Gupta; Reuters/Fadi Al-Assaad; Royal Geographical Society/Wikimedia Commons; Reuters/Stringer; AAP/Asmaa Abdelatif; Reuters/Stringer
Our series on understanding Islamic State attempts to catalogue many of the forces and events that can arguably have played a part in creating the conditions necessary for these jihadists to emerge.
Map of the Sykes–Picot Agreement showing Eastern Turkey in Asia, Syria and Western Persia, and areas of control and influence agreed between the British and the French in May 1916.
Royal Geographical Society via Wikimedia Commons
Over 500 years ago, first Jews and then Muslims were expelled from Spain. This summer, Spain’s Parliament invited the former back but not the latter. Here’s what Cervantes might say to his countrymen.
Visitors mourn at the Armenian Genocide Memorial in Yerevan, Armenia.
David Mdzinarishvili/Reuters
On the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, we asked scholars to reflect on the significance of Armenian insistence on remembering and Turkey’s insistence that the genocide never happened.
The Ottoman Chief Eunuch was an influential figure. In this and other caliphates, eunuchs supervised the harem, the princes, the financial affairs of the palace and the mosques, as well as controlling access to the ruler.
Photo postcard 1912
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed Islamic State (IS) as a Muslim caliphate on June 29, 2014, with himself as caliph, a term reserved for a successor to the prophet Muhammad (PBUH). His would be the newest…
Senior Research Fellow, Muslim Philanthropy Initiative at IUPUI and Journalist-fellow, Religion and Civic Culture Center, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences