aislum.com, or visit www.islamic-arts.com. Or contact the Islamic Arts Institute at _info@islamicarts.com._ The _Islamic Arts and Music Database_ (2001), available for $26.95 from the Islamic Arts Institute, is a CD-ROM of 798 tracks for use with PC or Macintosh. _An Encyclopedia of Religious, Theological, and Spiritual Source Materials_ (2003) covers both Eastern and Western traditions and has entries on such topics as "Avicenna," "Meister Eckhart," and "Rabbinic Literature." The book _Coffeehouse Worldwide Music Directory_ by M.J.S. Moorehead (2005) covers more than seven hundred coffeehouses around the world that specialize in jazz, classical, ethnic, world, swing, folk, or even classical-jazz fusion music. It is edited by Paul Lauterio and is available from the ISAN bookstore. _Jazz in the Desert_ (2006) is the first in a series of travel books by Bruce Feiler exploring the interweaving of traditional culture and urban modernity. This second volume covers the West African country of Senegal. Two books in the _Islamic Calligraphy_ series were written by Abdul-Wali Karim: _The Art of Islamic Calligraphy_ (2004) and _In Between the Veil and the Mosque_ (2001). The books, along with their companion videos _Learn to Draw Arabic Calligraphy_ (2000), are all available from the ISAN Bookstore. A book devoted to ornamentation, _Arabic Ornamentation_ (1989) by Khalid Khalifa, a leading expert on ornamentation, is also available from the ISAN bookstore. _The Calligraphy Society of America_ (2004) and _The Calligraphy Society of America Newsletter_ (2001) are both available from the ISAN bookstore. _Inscriptions from the Mughna Exhibition_ (2004) and _Inscriptions from the Book of Prophets_ (2005), both by Abdul-Wali Karim, can be purchased from the ISAN bookstore. _Calligraphy and Islamic Art in the Middle East_ (1996) and _A Practical Guide to Modern Calligraphy_ (1991) were both written by Sibghat Amin. They are available from the ISAN bookstore. _Bazaar of the Covered Carpet_ , by Richard Suter, is a book about rug design and architecture. It is available in French, German, and English from Steidl Publishers. There are more than forty thousand rugs in the International Artisans' Gallery. One of the most challenging collections of work by contemporary writers on Islam is _The Writing Life: Writers on Their Craft_ , published by the New York Public Library in 2007. One of its sections, _Writing on Islam_ , edited by John Edgar Wideman, features fifty-three essays written by an array of authors. They include: Fazlur Rahman, Amir Hassanpour, Richard Mohr, John R. Bowen, Daniel Goleman, James Clifford, Peter L. Berger, Robert Coen, Robert Dreyfuss, Mark Juergensmeyer, Anthony Grafton, and Jabal al-Alam. Islamic art is not restricted to a visual presentation of the faith. One important collection of written works on the spiritual side of Islam is _The Sufi Path of Love: The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi_ by James M. Morris, translated by Muzaffar Iqbal. Dr. Morris is a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has published thirty-four books on Sufism. His _The Masters of Truth in Persian Sufism_ (1999) is the first book-length study on the Sufi poet Rumi (1207–1273). Dr. Morris's _The Sufis_ (1972) and _Islam: The Essence of the Faith_ (1989) are also highly recommended. _Islamic Education and Islamic Philosophy in the Middle East_ (1991) is available from the ISAN bookstore. _The Islamic Revival_ (2003), edited by Bruce Hoffman, which is a book review published in _The New Republic_ , examines the impact of modern technology on the Muslim world. _The Holy Quran: Text, Translation, and Commentary_ , by Muhammad Asad, is an essential source of knowledge about Islam's most holy text. It is available from ISAN. _The Illustrated Dictionary of Religion_ (1993), edited by J.M. Cowan, is a collection of twenty-nine thousand words from religious works in several languages. Rachel Gutterman and Jonathan Matusitz, who wrote _Muhammad_ (2005), _The Golden Age of Persian Literature_ (2004), and _The Greatest: A Novel_ (1999), are both represented by the ISAN Bookstore. They continue to write on Islam and the environment in their column for _The Huffington Post_ , "Global Voices," and their nonfiction and fiction are available through _Gulf Coast_. The website _Islam: Empire of Faith_ (2007) is a great place to start researching about Islam and the religion's history. Also recommended is _The Empire of Faith: Islam and the Making of Modern Europe_ (2003) by Tom Holland. Al-Khateeb's website, _Q&A Islam_ (www.al-quran.com/qa_islam.htm), is a great tool for learning about Islam from Islamic scholars who have been asked many questions about the religion. Some of the questions are about Islam and other religions; others are from people asking about the Quran and the sunna. There are more than seventy questions about Islam on this site, with answers provided by prominent Islamic scholars. The site was created by Mohamed el-Fayed and is produced by a company called the Islam Portal. For those who would like to experience something akin to a "sacred text" experience, the London Book Fair offers a special kind of service. You can view its website, at www.england.com/londonsacredtext, for details. The website has information about a variety of seminars and courses that bring lectures of scholars and professionals into the real world, where the attendees can attend a discussion with Muslim thinkers, for example. I attended a session held on April 8, 2008, in the Marriott Hotel in New York City that featured Dr. Tariq Ramadan. He answered questions about his work in different parts of the world as well as his controversial remarks about women wearing headscarves. ## CONCLUSION In chapter 1, I asked you to imagine the most extraordinary, unlikely, and unexpected form of the spiritual life we can conceive of, or what an "Islamic culture" can be. Islam stands for equality for all people and is deeply rooted in pluralism. It means both equality and distinction, between men and women, whites and blacks, Christians and non-Christians, or rich and poor. It means both equality and distinctions. It is a religion of the soul and not just of the body. One might even say that Islam has some kind of a universal spirit. The Holy Qur'an invites us to enter the spirit of the whole universe and to recognize our role in it, our place in it, and our responsibility to a common world. This understanding of Islam as a vision for a religious and social order is what makes its practice possible: in Islamic lands or in the United States. One has to know a thing to see it. The same goes for Islam. Islam is a religious practice that provides a vision of community. It's like a map. As a student of classical Persian literature, I remember reading the "Travels of Ibn Battuta" in school. He was able to read the Qur'an and to learn a thing or two about religion, about history, and about geography. The famous Persian poet Rumi wrote in Arabic. The Prophet Muhammad spoke of the prophets of the Bible and taught Islam as a religion of laws, in which his Companions participated as a people who were responsible for God's Law and their lives and societies. Muhammad understood that the Qur'an provided the rules that guided life in Islamic societies and enabled the Muslims to shape themselves as a group. The Qur'an does not stand alone. It does not explain itself. It needs an interpreter, a medium, and a message to explain it and bring it into being. The Qur'an does not stand alone. It does not explain itself. It needs an interpreter, a medium, and a message to explain it and bring it into being. In the same way, the "Universal City" I described in the chapter's epigraph is one where the inhabitants of this society do not just seek an Islamic life or a better world, but where they want to live their lives as faithful Muslims or Americans or French or Germans or Canadians or Chinese or blacks or whites or people who live in big cities or small towns, where they live a Muslim life as members of the same society and of the same city, where they learn the science of living together, where they create a new kind of space, in which the different elements merge, where the different religions meet, where people live in harmony, and where they realize their responsibilities as individuals to the common good. I'll end with a beautiful poem written by Muhammad I