pt. 1. Tradition and change
The importance of children
Learning to be a man
Traditional girlhood
The bard
Going to a Koranic school
"My mind was open for information and wisdom"
Behavior and morality
Watching one's reputation
The public bath
Courtship
Removing the veil
The dream
The life of Mohammed
Letters on Islam
The five pillars of Islam
The pilgrimage to Mecca
"If God wills it"
- The grocer and the chief
A Lebanese family
The Islamic backlash
pt. 2. Past glories, future hopes
Colonialism and the making of a revolution
The Arab golden age: Harun Al-Rashid's Baghdad
The Ottoman empire
Ataturk's reforms
The philosophy of the revolution
After the revolution: Algerian self-government
Oil in the Middle East
Islamic feminism
The Arab-Israeli conflict
The life of Joseph Baratz, part 1-3
Israel: the forging of a nation
The Intifada: an uprising for a nation
The Persian Gulf War
After the war: the Palestinians and the Kurds
After the war: a chance for peace
What now? After the Camp David II talks fail
Zionism comes full circle
Declaring war on America
Terrorists on tape
Reactions to 9/11
Fundamentalist Islam
Whither Islam- and American?