Is Genghis Khan’s characterization “as terrifying as genocide and as dreadful as the plague” (Time, Dec. 31, 1999) sufficient? His legacy entailed the destruction of social and cultural order, but paradoxically, his empire also forged a dynamic...
Three empires from the Balkans to Bengal developed distinctive architectural, urban, material, and ornamental cultures rooted in their Timurid-Turkman pasts and transformed by cosmopolitan regional traditions. An inter-imperial dialogical...
The seminar examines the medium of drawing in the Islamic lands, focusing on the post-Mongol through early modern periods throughout the Middle East, Iran, India, and Central Asia. Topics include the medium, materiality and practice of drawing; subject...
Examines multimedia arts, monuments, gardens, and cities of the Ottoman Empire straddling Asia, Europe and Africa. The selective fusion of Ottoman-Islamic, Byzantine, and Italian Renaissance artistic traditions, and the earliest pictorial...
Course Description: Critically explores the historiography and interpretations of Islamic ornament. Themes include ornamentality and abstraction, theories of perception, orientalist discourses on the so-called "arabesque," resonances of non-...
Texts of the Persian literary tradition that were illustrated constitute our focus, including Firdawsi's Shahnama and Nizami's Khamsa. Study of word and image is staged through key examples to open new lines of inquiry.
The Harvard African Students Association nourishes cultural, intellectual, political and economic awareness about the African continent, and includes students from Africa, connected to Africa,...
The Harvard College Pakistan Student Association promotes interest in and awareness of Pakistan’s culture and current affairs within the Harvard undergraduate community.
The Harvard College Turkish Student Association is an undergraduate organization that aims to foster the interaction of Turkish students and students with an interest in Turkey...
Harvard Divinity School is a nonsectarian school of religious and theological studies that educates students both in the pursuit of the academic study of religion and in preparation for leadership in religious, governmental, and a wide range of service organizations.
Harvard Divinity School’s Muslim Council is a non-denominational association that extends a Muslim narrative to the broader Harvard community and greater Boston area. The Council aims...