Rounded Analysis On Contested Issues; Spotlighting Blind Spots; Politics, Religion, Travel, Books
The cultural affinity between India and Pakistan is often framed in terms of cross-border Punjabis but there is much more to it with divided mercantile communities such as Gujaratis being a case in point
A spirit of openness was fostered in what is now Iraq under the patronage of Abbasid rulers, who led from the front in their pursuit of knowledge at the peak of the Islamic Golden Age
The policies pursued in the aftermath of the 1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini-led Iranian revolution stoked sectarian hatred in the region but they have been discarded in line with the changed geo-political realities
Academic powerhouse Bayt al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom) carried the global light of learning in Baghdad for centuries as a centrepiece of the Islamic Golden Age
A tapering gateway of inscriptions and geometric themes now leads to Mustansiriya University, one of the world’s oldest universities which survived the Mongol onslaught, floods, and manmade and natural calamities that claimed much of Baghdad’s heritage over centuries
12th-century saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani is an integral part of the spiritual life in my native Kashmir, the Himalayan Valley he never visited over 4,000 km from his burial site in Baghdad
A theological college within the walls of Baghdad’s old city became the Qadiriyya Sufi Order’s mother shrine when the 12-century saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani was buried there
Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, and Christians continued living cheek by jowl rebuffing the toxic mix of religion and politics inside the warrens of Bab al-Sheikh, drawing inspiration from the 12th-century saint Sheikh Abdul Qadir Gilani, whose final resting place is located there By Sameer Arshad Khatlani In 2006, a bomb ripped through the Askari Mosque in … Continue reading Abdul Qadir Gilani: Saint Watching Over Baghdad’s Island Of Calm
Abbasid Baghdad had a sanitation department to ensure streets were regularly swept, washed, and free of refuse when London and Paris were ‘still grainy and chaotic little towns'
The Sinak Bridge in Baghdad offered a breathtaking view of the snaking Tigris in the Cradle of Civilization, where pivotal technological innovations such as writing, the wheel, and irrigation originated
