The novelist Flannery O’Connor famously wrote: “An artist prays by creating”. The...
Culture
Traditional Muslim architects were guided by cosmic patterns and principles which shaped...
The famed Quran reciter and specialist in maqāmāt (modalities of Arabic music) Uthman al-Mawsili was born in 1854 in Iraq during a drastically changing political and social landscape in the Arab and...
Daleel al-Khayrāt (The Guide to Goodness) is a groundbreaking documentary series that...
Throughout history, from sultans and scholars to warriors and commoners, Muslim men...
Throughout the Islamic world, poetry has played a significant role, not only as an expression of personal love, emotion and devotion to one’s faith, but also as a record of...
There are times and spaces that are considered more sacred or blessed...
View this post on Instagram A post shared by SACRED FOOTSTEPS (@sacredfootsteps)...
It’s a warm evening in the small Senegalese village of Medina Baye. Night prayers have just been completed, and the courtyard and prayer hall of the mosque are filled with...
The road unfolded before us like a ribbon, guiding our car through...
The Kenyan archipelago of Lamu, nestled on the Swahili coast, is decorated...
In a little known corner of an Indian metropolis lies a thriving Yemeni oasis, complete with harees, gahwah, and mandi. It’s Sunday morning, and the Bin Habtoor family is hard...
Centered around al-Aqsa compound and the old city of Jerusalem, Ramadan celebrations...
The ‘Dalā’il al-Khayrāt’ of East Africa and it’s Republication Journey إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ وَمَلَٰٓئِكَتَهُۥ يُصَلُّونَ عَلَى ٱلنَّبِيِّۚ يَٰٓأَيُّهَا ٱلَّذِينَ ءَامَنُواْ صَلُّواْ عَلَيۡهِ وَسَلِّمُواْ تَسۡلِيمًا Indeed, Allāh and His...
Zara talks to author and Arabist Diana Darke about her most recent book Stealing From The Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe. Diana explains how cultural exchanges between Europe and Islamic Syria shaped Gothic architecture, and why this has become a point of controversy in Europe today.
The Dala’il al-Khayrat, a collection of prayers and blessings upon the Prophet...
Abdullah Sattar explores the roots of Sufism in Punjab, which spread, in large part, through the words of poets that are still recited and resonate today.
Listen to the audio version of this article featuring audio extracts of the poems mentioned in the text: Podcast Ep 32 KHAYAL DIARIES | Divine Love & Sufi Poetry of Punjab...
“The camera is a kind of passport that annihilates moral boundaries and...
Muazzam Mir on the life of the great East African saint, Dada...
Walking through the heart of the old city, one may find its cobblestoned streets lead them to a compound accentuated by a gleaming white wall and a tall graceful tree...
Omar, Yasmine and Shahroze discuss the history, evolution and spiritual significance of qawwali. Qawwali incorporates music, poetry and story-telling in to a celebration of Love. The singing of qawwali in Sufi shrines and mausoleums is a practice of samaa, a devotional practice that involves singing, dancing, playing musical instruments, praying, reciting poetry and participating in rituals in order to achieve a higher spiritual state.
Over the course of my life, whenever I visited Pakistan, it was...
Zara and Zirrar talk to poet Baraka Blue about the life, work and legacy of Jalal al-Din Rumi. Baraka tells us about the era in which he lived and how he came to be the great poet we know him as. Zirrar and Baraka share their somewhat differing views on the controversy surrounding English translations of his work, and the claim that Islam has deliberately been ‘erased’ from his poetry.
While coffee shops are a central element of European culture, (Viennese kaffeehäuser have been deemed an intangible cultural heritage element by UNESCO) Europeans, including Italians and Greeks, owe their rich coffee customs to sharing the Mediterranean with the Arab and African worlds.
Our last stop on our trip to Kenya lay just off its...
Sidi Bou Said: Tunisia’s Trendy Coffee Town & its Hidden Sufi Connection Droves of men, in traditional Tunisian garb, flooded the entrances of a café from every direction, beads in...
A travel journal or blog, is not a new fad. Persians called...
Ali Abdelaziz Ben Saad explores the influence of the Ottoman coffee-houses of Tunis and the connections between coffee and spirituality.
“Look! It’s Dino Merlin,” whispers the man beside me. A well groomed white man in his early 50s wanders into Sarajevo’s Gazi Huzrev Beg Mosque courtyard and half sits, half leans against...
Safi ibn Vali’s Mughal Hajj maps The Salamat Ras departed Surat in...
There it stood, where I least expected it. Perhaps not the most...
