Civilizations collide when the transcendental values that govern them are used to define identity. During the Crusades, the Christian belief that God was immanent in the person of Jesus Christ collided with the Islamic vision that God is transcendent. For the Christian world all that was holy and venerable was embodied in the Cross of the Holy Sepulcher on which Jesus is believed to have been...

Egypt and the Suez Canal Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD Egypt is where the two giant continents of Asia and Africa meet. South of the Jordan valley the landscape of West Asia changes to the harsh desert of the Sinai. Dust storms rise up in the desert, blowing their way through the wasteland, making it difficult for man or beast to survive. At Suez, this harsh land meets up...

The origins of the Ottoman Empire are to be found in a combination of Turkish asabiyah and the Islamic spirit of ghazza (meaning, struggle in the cause of God). Asabiyah, a term used by Ibn Khaldun to denote tribal cohesion, is the force that holds together tribes through bonds of blood, a characteristic found in abundance among peoples of the desert and the nomads of...

Tipu Sultan Contributed by Prof. Dr. Nazeer Ahmed, PhD The year 1799 marks a watershed on the Islamic calendar. It was the year that Napoleon landed his troops in Egypt. It was also the year that the British stormed the Fort of Srirangapatam, and the curtain fell on Islamic rule in India. The first event, the landing of French troops in Ottoman Egypt, confirmed the superiority of...