Hannah Korn
Posted: Thursday, June 28, 2012
The range of manuscripts included in Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition suggests the importance of book production in the cultures found throughout the exhibition. Paleography (the study of handwriting) provides insight into the development of script and writing during this time.
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Heather Badamo, Harper-Schmidt Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Art History, University of Chicago
Posted: Friday, June 22, 2012
Walking through galleries that display Qur'ans and Muslim palatial sculpture, you may wonder what happened to the Christian communities who came to live under Islamic rule. In The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque, Sidney H. Griffith goes some way toward answering this question, showing how Christians made a place for themselves in the new Islamic caliphate.
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Betsy Williams, Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow, Department of Islamic Art
Posted: Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Although the Qur’an shares much with the Judeo-Christian traditions of the Torah and the Old and New Testaments, it is often difficult for non-Muslim readers to understand the text's repeated formulations and unique approach to narrative. Michael Sells's book Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations seeks to assist the unfamiliar by emphasizing the Qur’an's literary qualities.
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Betsy Williams, Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellow, Department of Islamic Art
Posted: Thursday, April 5, 2012
Struggles of succession plagued the community of Muslims in the decades after Muhammed's death in 632 A.D. The first four Muslim leaders, known as the Rashidun, or "Rightly Guided" caliphs, did not succeed by birth, but rather were chosen by council or because of a personal relationship to the Prophet. The period was marked by strident disagreements about legitimacy of individual caliphs and about the proper practice of Islam.
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