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Iran’s modern history has repeatedly unfolded in ways that made this line—together with the longing for dawn—feel painfully current again and again. Perhaps never more so than in recent weeks, following the brutally violent suppression of the protests that had been ongoing since late December

The most widespread Russian type of Hagia Sophia stems from a pious misunderstanding, depicting Hagia Sophia as “Saint Sophia” accompanied by her three daughters, Vera, Nadezhda, and Lyubov

The baths were less about washing and much more about social life. This was where Tbilisians and foreign merchants met for family gatherings, business talks, and celebrations. Future mothers-in-law could discreetly inspect potential brides without veils

The chroniclers of the Arab conquest between 665 and 689 report that among the Atlas Berber tribes, many followed the Jewish faith

To the little one-eyed beggar, who sang Rumi poems from one end to the other of the Tehran metro

The initial in the so-called Kaufmann Haggadah, created in 14th-century Catalonia, depicts a king lifting a cup to offer a blessing: BRWK, that is, Baruk Adonai, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.”