“God is beautiful and loves beauty,” said the Prophet Muhammad. Now Harvard’s Ali Asani explores various artistic and literary forms to open the sacred, complex, and culturally diverse worlds of Islam. “The arts help to humanize cultures where political discourse based on nationalist ideologies tend to dehumanize,” Asani says.

Asani is chair of the Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations Department and the director of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Islamic Studies Program at Harvard University.