Juan Cole

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Distinguished University Professor in the History Department at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

“Reviving old Desires:” Saadi and Omar Khayyam on Celebrating the New Year

The dawn wind wafts the scent of the New Year / to friends’ delight and triumphant good cheer.

Not you nor I have known the secrets of eternity. / Not you nor I have solved the riddle that the letter hides

From earth’s dark depths to Saturn’s pinnacle / I solved the puzzles of the turning skies.

The most significant green energy good news stories we covered in 2025

The big victors in the rise of a Lebanon-Syria-Jordan Sunni Crescent are Turkiye and the Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies

Ironically, the strike was fully supported by the Muslim president of Nigeria, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Bennoune He wrote not only of innumerable massacres by French commanders of local populations but also of a vast transfer of landed wealth

Muslim mystics such as Rumi, Attar and other Sufi writers often referred to Jesus as a symbol of spirituality and love.

The adoption of electric vehicles has spread to the Global South and is no longer only a Chinese, European and American phenomenon.