"Farkhunda Malikzada was a fine carpet weaver and a great cook. She always wore black, and recited the Koran early every morning." So begins an article reporting on the murder of this 27-year-old woman by a mob in Kabul on March 19, 2015...

Jessica Stern addresses the Islamic State organization’s appeal to its recruits, arguing that we must evaluate that appeal in terms of the material incentives ISIS provides to its supporters as well as its ideology. Michael Pregill describes the political exegesis of the biblical and qur’anic image of Noah’s Ark in Dabiq, the Islamic State’s propaganda magazine.

It is something of an understatement to say that the study of the Qur’an and Islamic origins is currently in a state of extreme ferment. Over the last decade, we have seen a significant resurgence of interest in exploring Islamic origins and the background to the Qur’an by examining the history, politics, culture, and religion of the wider world of Late Antiquity in which the Qur’an was revealed and the Muslim umma emerged.