We reached the front of the mosque at almost the same time. But when we got to the wall, we were sent away at our own angles. Those of us who hadn't been to a mosque like this made lazy, looping circuits, trying but failing to take it all in....

I just wanted to share some brief thoughts on the Muslim holiday.

There are millions of Muslims on the verge of concluding their pilgrimage (hajj) in Mecca; by the time you read this, they're already finished, exhausted and sharing the meat of a sacrificed animal with family, neighbors and the...

Physically awkward, socially uncomfortable, mechanically rigid, and not balding, but conclusively balded, having lost it and pointing it out with a toupee. For high school students, that's blood in the water. We'd regularly tease him; our pre-calculus class in particular was famed for its brazenness (and be sure we reveled...

Just a few days ago, an ABC News anchor asked his correspondent on the ground to explain the Muslim Brotherhood to their viewers. We were told that they weren't the Taliban, they weren't mullahs (which the Taliban are also not) -- we were reassured that the Brotherhood, although a very...

The following is reprinted with permission from Religion Dispatches. You can sign up for their free daily newsletter here.

Just as in the case of Tunisia, we've been caught off guard by the rapid pace of events in Egypt. Commentators are having a difficult time understanding the dynamics...

I love books. I have hundreds, as I suppose any aspiring academic should. I need to move out of Manhattan, because I can't afford an apartment large enough to house all these books. (Ask my wife: There aren't enough walls left and my attempt to shelve books on the ceiling...

The first lesson of journalism might just be this: Mind your facts. (That goes for the editor, too).

I share this obviousness with you because of an engaging paragraph that came my way in the course of my morning New York Times reading routine. (I know, I know: Maybe this...

Watch The Linguists, a documentary about two really smart men who travel across the world to record dying languages because they cannot save them. They feel, express and implore, we should have: We should have tried to preserve the many different ways in which people perceive the world,...

In the seventh chapter of the Qur'an, translated into English as "The Heights," God tells humanity that, before Adam's creation, He gathered the souls of all who would live to ask them, "Am I Not Your Lord?"

When your Lord drew forth from the Children of Adam their descendants...

On June 17, 2008, I turned 28. I also got to watch the Lakers get spanked in Game 6 of the NBA Finals, a 39-point shaming by the Boston Celtics. Nothing can more deeply wound a Lakers fan than to see his (my) team lose to the Celtics, let alone...

Some of my fellow Americans are sure that Miss USA 2010, Lebanese-American Rima Fakih, is a Hezbollah plant, an effect of the liberal treachery that's handing America over to Islam. Some Muslims are angry that Fakih, who showed herself off in a barely-there bikini, is identified with their religion and...

In the most recent The American Interest, Charles Horner and Eric Brown discuss how and why Communist China is fearful of Muslims ("Beijing's Islamic Complex"). Inside China, the Uighur Muslims of Xinjiang, or Turkestan, who came onto many people's radars for the first time after last summer's riots...