The Iranian people are being held hostage by the confrontation between America and the regime in Tehran. Stefan Buchen considers in his essay whether the country's culture can still continue to flourish in the face of this latest 'high noon'Read more
Looking outwards with the knowledge from within: a conversation with the Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon on the future of his homeland. Interview by Lena BoppRead more
Few Muslims have to date visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp memorial site. Now high-ranking representatives of Muslims and Jews are travelling together to the place of horror. It is a story of personal encounter. By Christoph StrackRead more
The terror attacks in Paris, Brussels and Berlin were all carried out by men radicalised in jail. In Germany, politics and the judiciary are trying out new approaches to prevent inmates from becoming extremists. By Esther Felden and Matthias von HeinRead more
Looking outwards with the knowledge from within: a conversation with the Iraqi writer Sinan Antoon on the future of his homeland. Interview by Lena BoppMore
The Iranian people are being held hostage by the confrontation between America and the regime in Tehran. Stefan Buchen considers in his essay whether the country's culture can still continue to flourish in the face of this latest 'high noon'More
Political analyst Taqadum al-Khatib argues that Egypt can, in co-ordination with its European partners, develop a common vision to solve the complex conflict in Libya. For this to happen, however, Egypt must disengage its foreign policy from that of the UAE and Saudi ArabiaMore
Libyans have mixed feelings about the EU. On the one hand, they admire what Europeans have achieved, but on the other, they feel let down. Moutaz and Walid Ali report from TripoliMore
Few Muslims have to date visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp memorial site. Now high-ranking representatives of Muslims and Jews are travelling together to the place of horror. It is a story of personal encounter. By Christoph StrackMore
The terror attacks in Paris, Brussels and Berlin were all carried out by men radicalised in jail. In Germany, politics and the judiciary are trying out new approaches to prevent inmates from becoming extremists. By Esther Felden and Matthias von HeinMore
Two and a half years since its liberation from the Islamic State group, large areas of Mosul still lie in rubble. Germany is contributing in a variety of ways to the reconstruction of the city in northern Iraq. Brigit Svensson reports from IraqMore
At the suggestion of his Arab students, Israeli psychologist Ofer Grosbard created the project "Quranet", which uses texts from the Koran to solve educational problems in schools and families. More than ten years after its inception, the project is now attracting attention in the Arab world. Interview by Claudia MendeMore
With "The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree", Shokoofeh Azar has created a beautiful, sad fable set in a horrible reality. While there are moments of hope to be found in the past and in the realms of magic, they are fiercely trammelled underfoot by the cruelty and harsh realities of the world. Richard Marcus read the bookMore
The "maqama", a classical Arabic form of prose-poetry, is still almost unknown in Germany – as is the name of the 11th-century Baghdad poet Ibn Naqiya. A new translation has the potential to change all that. By Gerrit WustmannMore
In her novel "Immer mit Zucker" Pajand Soleymani creates a surreal world of cinematic images, intellectual discussion and dreamlike transformation. An unusual reading experience distantly reminiscent of the stories of "One Thousand and One Nights". Volker Kaminski read the bookMore
In 2019, the long-running Penguin Classics series released its first novel translated from Arabic: Tawfiq al-Hakim’s "Return of the Spirit", conveyed into English by William Hutchins. Al-Hakim wrote his popular novel in Paris in 1927 and published it in Cairo six years later, in 1933. Marcia Lynx Qualey read the bookMore
Behind a suffocating political system and inquisitive cliches, Iranian youth dream of a break with the system while proudly defending their culture. By Gwenvaël Engel
Human Rights Watch: Calling to account those who attacked Sudan's protesters in 2019
The deadly attacks on Sudanese demonstrators last June were in most cases intentional and could be punished as crimes against humanity. Human Rights Watch is demandung that the transitional authorities be held accountable for the unlawful violence.More
House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee: Testimony on Libya
The current crisis is Libya’s worst in half a decade and, potentially, since the 2011 revolution. Unless swift action is taken to end the clashes and return to a political process, the damage may be irreparable.More
BBC Africa Eye: What hope for Somalia?
Jamal Osman, a Somali journalist, has watched his country being torn apart by civil war for three decades. When al-Shabab Islamists brutally attacked a hotel in Kismayo in July last year, leaving 26 dead and 56 injured, any fragile hopes of lasting security in the region were shattered.More
Water is life: Environmental protection
Water is one of the most important elements of our planet. As a source of life, it is also one of the commons most threatened by the way we use it. In cooperation with Afaq Magazine, Goethe Institut Perspectives showcases initiatives, ideas and possible solultions for the MENA region.More
Jordanian poet Amjad Nasser confronts his own mortality
In May last year, Jordanian poet, journalist, and novelist Amjad Nasser published a small cycle of poems online about coming to terms with the end of his life after his brain tumors had resisted treatment. He died in October.More
Statue of Liberty originally intended for Suez Canal
The Statue of Liberty was designed by French artist and sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, who, after visiting Egypt in 1855 with a group of Orientalist painters, decided to create a colossal statue intended to rival Egypt’s ancient ones, namely one of the most iconic statue of the Giza Plateau, the Sphinx.More
The Mediterranean – one giant graveyard
The film "Strange Fish", which played at last year's Global Migration Film Festival, tells the story of a group of fishermen in Zarzis, southern Tunisia, and how their lives have been affected by the migration which criss-crosses the waters in which they fish.More
Arabic literature to be published in translation in 2020
In recent years, the number of Arabic books – both fiction and non-fiction – available in translation has been on the rise. The ArabLit team has put together a list of titles scheduled for publication in 2020.More
The people who shaped Islamic civilisation
Chase Robinson's new book "Islamic Civilisation in Thirty Lives" is an elegant digest of the many colourful, creative and technologically innovative manifestations that the Prophet Muhammad inspired from his seventh-century oases in the Arabian peninsula, reminding us that Islam is less a nihilistic creed than a global civilisation.More
The German Islam Scholar Lamya Kaddor
Why I as a Muslim Woman Don't Wear a Headscarf
Jordan and the influx of refugees
The true Samaritans
Muslims in Liberal Democracies
Why the West Fears Islam
The decline of Islamic scientific thought
Don't blame it on al-Ghazali
The Media and ''The Innocence of Muslims''
Against the Islamisation of Muslims
Turning away from Shia in Iran
''A Tsunami of Atheism''