The relationships of cultures are not so very different from the relationships of individuals.

With mosques functioning as the local centers of Islamic faith and the object of renewed Western suspicion, it is undeniable that mosques also help keep alive the memory of the divide of civilizations that once rent the world irreparably in two.

Compared to the European writers discovering the great mosques of Islam for the first time, the mention of mosques is more muted and void of romance to the Muslim secularists inured to them from birth.

By the end of the 19th century, mosques became lyrical, escapist, and hallucinogenic motifs for writers who had never even set sight on them.

For the last three centuries, it's been an aesthetic and cultural conversion that keeps the secular minds of the West returning to the sacred architecture of Islam.

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN by Jimmy Demers "I recently saw a screening of the documentary "Waiting for Superman" and felt compelled to share a few words o...

No need to go overseas for a European experience, an evening at the Getty will do. Being elevated above the city immediately puts you in a "dream like" state of mind.