Bridging Cultures: Muslim Journeys Bookshelf : Art, Architecture, and Film

A global contest reading of the Qur'an by young Muslim children that takes place in Cairo, Egypt annually during Ramadan. A coming of age story about Muslim kids in modern times.

A comprehensive survey that brilliantly captures the essence of Islamic culture. Islamic Arts, a comprehensive survey covering a thousand years, highlights those characteristics that connect the various arts of the Islamic lands without minimizing the differences. The book is divided into three time periods - 600-900, 900-1500 and 1500-1800 - and each section analyses architecture, the arts of the book, decorative and applied arts.

The film explores the richness of Islamic art in objects big and small, from great ornamented palaces and the play of light in monumental mosques to the exquisite beauty of ceramics, carved boxes, paintings and metal work. It revels in the use of color and finds commonalities in a shared artistic heritage with the West and East. The film also examines the unique ways in which Islamic art turns calligraphy and the written word into masterpieces and develops water into an expressive, useful art form.

In 1788 a slave-ship set sail from West Africa, its berth laden with a profitable but fragile cargo: hundreds of men, women and children bound in chains and headed for American shores. Eight months later the survivors were sold in Natchez, Mississippi. Among them was the 26-year-old Abdul Rahman Sori, heir to the throne of one of the largest kingdoms in Africa.

'It is laid down in the Qur'an that at least once in their lives Muslims should undertake the annual spiritual pilgrimage;the Hajj;to the holy city of Mecca. There, within a sanctuary, lies the Kaba;a cube of black granite that is the literal center of a Muslim's world and the compass point towards which daily prayers are made. Features illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings and photographs, calligraphy, textiles, scientific instruments, decorative tiles, maps, ceramics, metalwork, and powerful works by contemporary artists.

Islamic Art Spots (short films designed, written, and presented by D. Fairchild Ruggles, developed especially for the Muslim Journeys Bookshelf)