In al-Ghazālī’s “Wonders of the Heart”—an important part of the famous Muslim thinker’s multi-volume magnum opus, The Resuscitation of the Religious Sciences—we read a litany of metaphorical descriptions of the heart. The heart, for Ghazālī, is a powerful locus of cognition, affect, and control. It is a "king" and its “armies” are the external sense-organs and limbs, as well as internal psychic complexes and appetites. The king-heart has to command these armies in order to make a safe “journey to God.” Why does Ghazālī rely so heavily on metaphor in his description of the heart? What does he make of these illustrative examples, and what do we?

How do we characterize the “fuzzy, but generally definable” cultural realm of the “Persianate”? Over the course of two days, scholars gathered together for the symposium to think about how current scholarship uses the “fuzzy, but generally definable” term “Persianate.” The discussions centered on the language and aesthetics of poetry and visual works. Speakers treated topics that allowed for detailed examination of modes of cultural exchange, movement of objects, and early modern itineraries within the conceptual frameworks of translation, imitation, hybridity, and innovation...