There are brief moments in history when nature lifts its veil to the human intellect so that it may witness the majesty of divine creation and pass on the wisdom gained from this encounter to succeeding generations. One such intellect was that of Al Kindi. Abu Yusuf Yaqub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi, one of the most celebrated of the philosophers and natural scientists of the classical age of Islam,...

Eid ul-Fitr, often simply called Eid, is one of the most important festivals in the Islamic calendar. Eid ul-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting. For Muslims, it is a time of great religious and social celebration.The date of Eid is set by the visual sighting of the new moon and so may fall on different Gregorian calendar dates each year. However, it always occurs on the...

Fourteen years after Razia ascended the throne of Delhi (1236), another remarkable lady, Shajarat al Durr, became the queen of Egypt (1250). Like Razia, Shajarat al Durr was a Mamluke and a Turk. Specifically, Shajarat belonged to the family of Bahri Mamlukes, the Turkish tribe who had settled in the islands that dot the Nile. Those were turbulent times for the world of Islam. There existed at...