University of Pittsburgh

An article in Aramco World about the history of naming stars.

Scholars have identified 210 visible stars that carry Arabic names, some of which preserve older names that date back to Babylon and Sumeria. In this illustration, the 30 brightest stars with Arabic names appear as eight-pointed stars, in sizes adjusted for their relative magnitudes, or brightnesses. some 210 of the brightest and most visible stars have modern names of Arabic origin.

Lessons on Late Ottoman Empire download, Gallery Walk of Baghdad and Cosmopolitan Alexandria
Handout, Timeline, graphics, maps, charts

This project was funded by the British Council and Social Science Research Council's "Our Shared Past Initiative."

Medieval map of Constantinople,
1422

Secondary

Complete Curriculum, primary resources and annotated bibliograpy

Middle and Secondary Levels

Most students are acquainted with the importance of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in world history, but know little of the world’s third largest ocean, the Indian Ocean, which for centuries provided a medium of exchange among the world’s great civilizations. In this lesson students focus on famous travelers in the Indian Ocean during the Medieval Era (300-1450 CE).

Performance Objectives, Handouts, Question guides provided

Secondary Level:

Secondary Curriculum created by Pulitzer Center Education, around research conducted by Katherine Zoepf is a fellow at the New America Foundation. Her first book, “Excellent Daughters: The Secret Lives of Young Women Who Are Transforming the Arab World,” comes out this month. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, New York Observer, International Herald Tribune, Chronicle of Higher Education, The New York Times Magazine and elsewhere.

Author and Scholar Lil Abu-Lughod presents her findings... Frequent reports of honor killings, disfigurement, and sensational abuse have given rise to a consensus in the West, a message propagated by human rights groups and the media: Muslim women need to be rescued. Lila Abu-Lughod, who has been writing about Arab women for thirty years, challenges this conclusion in DO MUSLIM WOMEN NEED SAVING? The book is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam.