Category: Culture & Art


  • The truth is in the details. A review of the novel ‘Minor Detail’ by Adania Shibli

    The truth is in the details. A review of the novel ‘Minor Detail’ by Adania Shibli

    In ‘Minor Detail’, the truth does not always do people justice, but it is the willingness to seek it that counts


  • Can a dating app be halal?

    Can a dating app be halal?

    ‘Muslims don’t date, they marry’. Since its founding, the Muzzmatch app has been helping Muslim men and women meet their future spouse on their own terms


  • Indian dolce vita. What do laddoo taste like?

    Indian dolce vita. What do laddoo taste like?

    Birth of a child, promotion or Diwali – in India, none can happen without a proper grand celebration accompanied by traditional Indian sweets. Friend’s engagement? Have a chewy and sweet karachi halva. A passed exam? Take a bite of a rich and syrupy doughnut – gulab jamun


  • Zooming in on Amman

    Zooming in on Amman

    Among many pictures of Petra, the Citadel, and other landmarks of Jordan few capture everyday life in the Hashemite Kingdom like those shot by Baha Suleiman. No wonder the nineteen-year-old photographer has been already appreciated twice by GQ magazine


  • Self-made. A story of a Jewish woman 

    Self-made. A story of a Jewish woman 

    ‘Blessed are You, Eternal our God, who has not made me a woman.’ With these words Orthodox Jews welcome every morning. Our guest from the Hasidic community shows, that a Jewish woman can make herself


  • Fairuz. The lebanese voice of hope

    Fairuz. The lebanese voice of hope

    “Lebanese men and women may differ from one another in every way but when it comes to Her, they are always in agreement.” Fairuz – the most famous Lebanese artist and voice of hope


  • Who was the real Santa Claus?

    Who was the real Santa Claus?

    An old man with a beard, a witch, or a troll? Who was the Santa Claus underneath? What shape does it assume today?


  • Sunglasses and love songs

    Sunglasses and love songs

    Her father, when he discovered his daughter’s extraordinary talent, dressed her up as a boy. This was the only way she could sing in front of a conservative audience


  • Feminist Qawwali or just plain advertising?

    Feminist Qawwali or just plain advertising?

    Did you think a battle of the voices is a Western invention? Musical skirmishes had been organised in northern India and Pakistan before it was cool


  • Three Jewish sisters and one Yemeni hit

    Three Jewish sisters and one Yemeni hit

    In the desert, work is in full swing. Three young women are cooking, chopping wood and even shaving a man while singing about great love. Finally, dressed in pink jelabiyas (a loose body covering in Arab countries), they hop on an open-topped jeep and drive through desert


  • Patriarchy and minorities. What can you learn from Elif Shafak’s “The Bastard of Istanbul”?

    Patriarchy and minorities. What can you learn from Elif Shafak’s “The Bastard of Istanbul”?

    Shafak’s novels allowed me to rediscover the power of fiction and the fact that fiction books do not have to be about fictional problems. Instead, they provide the reader with an insight into all these topics, which are difficult to grasp for a non-fiction writer