Introduction: A day in the life of Damascus -- Palimpsests in stone and layered texts: the multiple histories of the Umayyad Mosque -- Tangled memories: the temple, church, and first mosque -- The ...

In northern Jordan, along a wadi once called the Golden River, the ancient city of Jerash sits uneasily alongside its modern namesake. With its columned temples, Roman forum, and other monuments, it's ...

Borrowing the model of the palimpsest, George’s The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus: Art, Faith and Empire in Early Islam takes the reader on a vivid tour of the renowned mosque’s history, meaning, and ...

The history of caliphates in the Muslim community has been vast, but the groups have never provided solutions to Muslim politics, according to Douglas Streusand, a professor of international relations ...

In 836CE, Abbasid caliph al-Mu’tasim ordered the construction of a new capital city on the east bank of the Tigris River, in modern-day Iraq. Since 762, al-Mu’tasim’s predecessors had ruled from ...

Syrian Alawites speak on massacres, persecution, and hopes for federalism amid Syria’s collapse and international silence.