Omid Safi New Director of Duke Islamic Studies Center

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary and TIRN, for DUKE TODAY on JULY 22, 2014:

Omid Safi, (pictured) a prominent Islamic studies professor and scholar, joined the faculty of Duke this month as director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC).

As the new William and Bettye Martin Musham Director for Islamic Studies, Safi will oversee DISC, the university’s hub of teaching, learning and research about Islam and Muslim communities.

Bettye Musham, whose $3 million gift supported the creation of the directorship, is also a founding member of the DISC advisory board. (For more information about the gift, click here.) Continue reading →

via WORLD BULLETIN on MAY 14, 2014:

A Turkish cultural institute is holding exhibition of over two thousand manuscripts from the Ottoman Empire

A sixteenth century Persian manuscript detailing the life of Turko-Mongol ruler Tamerlane and a copy of the Muslim holy book of Quran in Persian from the fifteenth century are the two of the highlights of an exhibition of manuscripts from the Islamic world on show in at the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts in Zagreb.

Organised by representatives from the Yunus Emre Institute and the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts in Zagreb, the exhibition opened Monday and will run till May 31.

The over two thousand manuscripts are from the Ottoman Turkey and were collections stored for centuries in family libraries in various Balkan countries; mainly Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia, said Tatiana Paicvukic, an oriental history scholar in charge of the manuscripts at the Croatian Academy. They have been in Croatian Academy archives since 1927.

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