Speaking Event: Islamic Art and Culture Forum – Dr. Hussein Rashid – SMU

Click the link to see the artwork. It’s a shame that extremism becomes a vicious downward spiral. They are ugly, so they take beauty out of the world, then they seem beautiful because there is not true beauty, and they make themselves uglier.  Muhammad – No. 72 – Mascot Mashup by Ian Cavalier – Translating famous characters into 8-bit art.

How to Meet Muslims: A (Cinematic) Primer | Culture | Religion Dispatches. The next best thing to a living, breathing Muslim is an approximation of one. That is, the silver screen (had you said robots, I’d counter: Muslims will be the last people on Earth to come up with robots). Why not? Movies explore the lives and experiences of Muslims in a format that can be watched as easily at home as on the train (that’s what iPads are for).

Aleppo, Syria, Preserves the Past by Enhancing the Present – NYTimes.com. But this quiet plaza is the centerpiece of one of the most far-thinking preservation projects in the Middle East, one that places as much importance on people as it does on the buildings they live in. The project encompasses the rebuilding of crumbling streets and the upgrading of city services, the restoration of hundreds of houses in the historic Old City, plans for a 42-acre park in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and the near-decade-long restoration of the Citadel itself, whose massive walls dominate the skyline of Aleppo,…