Shahnameh – Islamic Literature
Death of Iskandar (Alexander), from the Great Mongol Shahnameh (Iran, 1330s AD) In the 900s AD, Central Asia was the most civilized part of the world. The universities and libraries of [...]
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07, 2017
26
07, 2017
Rustem swims away – a story in the Shahnameh
The Devil carries Rostem Like Odysseus or Anansi, Monkey or Br'er Rabbit, the Iranian hero Rustem was a trickster. He uses quick thinking to get out of this fix: Once when he was sleeping alone outside [...]
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07, 2017
Rudaba and Zal in the Shahnameh
Rudaba lets down her hair A story from the Shahnameh Rudaba's name means "The River Water Girl". She was a character in the Persian epic Shahnameh, written by the poet Ferdowsi [...]
25
07, 2017
Islamic poetry – Medieval Islam
The poet Rumi (1200s AD) Arabic poetry has a long tradition in the Arabian peninsula even before the development of Islam. People composed and recited long poems that they remembered without writing down. [...]
25
07, 2017
Noureddin and the Persian Woman
A pile of gold coins Here's another of the stories Sheherazade told the king: Once the sultan had two viziers, a good one (Khacan) and a bad one (Saouy). Naturally Saouy hated [...]
25
07, 2017
Mullah Nasruddin – Islamic Stories
Grapes on a Seljuk period plate Nasruddin lived in the time of the Seljuk Sultans. One day Nasruddin was coming from the vineyard with baskets of grapes on his donkey. The children crowded around [...]
25
07, 2017
Arabic language and literature
Arabic language: Sabataean writing Where did Arabic come from? Arabic is in the Semitic language group. Semitic languages seem to have gotten started before the beginning of writing. That would be before [...]
25
07, 2017
Medieval Islamic historians
A page from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, from Herat, Afghanistan, about 1444 AD. Now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge Islamic historians began by translating Greek historians like Herodotus and Thucydides into Arabic. But soon historians wrote in [...]
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07, 2017
Islamic geographers – Medieval Islam
Islamic geographers: al-Idrisi's map of the world (1100s AD) Universities in the Islamic Empire Silk Road and Indian Ocean trade made many people in the Islamic Empire rich enough to send [...]
25
07, 2017
The Islamic story of wheat on the chessboard
Muslims playing chess in Spain What is exponential growth? About 1260 AD, Ibn Khallikan, a Kurdish historian living in the Abbasid Empire (modern Iraq), wrote an encyclopedia with biographies of many famous men [...]
