Islam

In the early days of the First World War a plan was hatched in Berlin to spread revolt among the Muslim populations of the Entente empires. David Motadel looks at the reasons why it failed.

The decline of language skills threatens the study of the past. And machines won’t come to the rescue.

Findings at a desert site in eastern Syria shed light on pagan, Jewish and early Christian religions.

P.M. Holt depicts 'an organized revolutionary movement... resulting in the establishment of a territorial Islamic state'.

The ‘little town’ celebrated by western Christians as the location of the Nativity is much more than a stylised depiction evoked in Christmas cards each December, says Jacob Norris. 

John Godfrey describes how the capture of Constantinople in 1204 was an unexpected result of the Crusading movement.

From their origins in the 13th century until the suppression of the Sufis by Atatürk, the whirling dervishes symbolized their beliefs through their ecstatic dances.

As a means of national survival, write Diana Spearman and M. Naim Turfan, Atatürk preached the whole-hearted acceptance of contemporary civilization.

Lansing Collins describes how, in honour of a previous gift sent in the other direction, Elizabeth I presented Sultan Mohammed III with an elaborate clock, surmounted by singing birds that shook their wings.

Many Moors remained under Christian rule in Spain, writes Stephen Clissold, but most of them were finally expelled under Philip III.