The first formal madrasa of the Muslim world, the University of al-Karaouine in Fes was established in 859 by a wealthy merchant by the name of Fatima al-Fihri. More

Throughout Islamic history, education was a point of pride and a field Muslims have always excelled in. Muslims built great libraries and learning centers in places such as Baghdad, Cordoba, and Cairo. They established the first primary schools for children and universities for continuing education. They advanced sciences by incredible leaps and More

Perhaps the largest human impact of the 1948 War was the expulsion of much of the Palestinian population. Within the borders of the new State of Israel, there had been close to 1,000,000 Palestinian Arabs before the war. More

One of the most jarring and important events of recent Islamic history has been the Arab-Israeli Conflict. This conflict is multifaceted, complex, and is still one of the world’s most problematic issues in international relations. More

The European powers, however, believed it was only a matter of time before ethnic tensions would erupt into fully-fledged independence movements. More

No war has had as big an impact on the modern Middle East as the First World War, which lasted from 1914-1918. More

From the 1500s through the 1800s, European nations were engaged in a tragic and barbaric practice known as the "slave trade". During this period, over 12 million Africans were boarded onto ships and taken to North and South America to work as slaves. The legacy of this inhumane treatment lives on today, in the form of racism and economic More

The first great expansion of Islam into India came during the Umayyad Dynasty of caliphs, who were based in Damascus. In 711, the Umayyads appointed a young 17-year-old man from Ta’if to extend Umayyad control into Sindh: Muhammad bin Qasim. Sindh is the land around the Indus River in the Northwestern part of the subcontinent, in present-day More

With all of this evidence of Muslim exploration before Columbus’s voyage in 1492, is it possible that Columbus knew he was not the first? It’s more than likely to be the case. Columbus sailed from Spain in the same year the last Muslim dynasty of Iberia was destroyed in the Reconquista. More

In 1929, an amazing discovery was made in Istanbul, Turkey. A map drawn in the year 1513 by the Ottoman cartographer, Piri Reis was found. Reis wrote that his map was based on earlier sources, including ancient Greek and Arabic maps, including maps by Christopher Columbus, who had sailed only 21 years earlier. What is remarkable about this map is More

There is another part of the Muslim world that had contact with the Americas before Columbus. In West Africa in the 1300s, a powerful and incredibly wealthy empire called Mali existed. The most famous leader of this empire was Mansa (king) Musa. The most memorable event of his reign was his epic hajj journey in 1324. More

The old poem that most American school children recognize begins “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue…” Indeed, in the year 1492, Christopher Columbus (whose real name in Italian was Cristoforo Colombo) sailed across the Atlantic in the name of the Spanish crown and landed in the Caribbean part of North America. More