Deep in the West African nation of Mali, where the savannah grasslands meet the Sahara, lies Timbuktu. It’s an impoverished town of about 30,000, most of them nomadic traders or subsistence farmers. But Timbuktu is rich in history — long ago, it was a place of high Islamic scholarship, and it still has a million manuscripts to prove it. More
Islamic scholars in Cairo said an attack on Iraq would be an attack on all Islam, and that every Muslim would have the obligation to defend the faith. Diane Knippers, Jack Moline, and Akbar Ahmed join us to discuss the implications of that call -- and of the war -- for Muslims, Christians, and Jews.
Read more of Bob Abernethy’s interview with Seyyed Hossein Nasr, University Professor of Islamic Studies at George Washington University and the author most recently of THE HEART OF ISLAM: ENDURING VALUES FOR HUMANITY and ISLAM: RELIGION, HISTORY, AND CIVILIZATION. More
Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the five so-called pillars of Islam, an obligation of Muslims worldwide. Muslims use a lunar calendar, and Ramadan begins with the new moon. But for devout Muslims, it’s not enough to calculate mathematically when the crescent moon rises. It has to be seen. More