Islam's first architectural masterpiece, built 13 centuries ago, stands at the heart of the Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary of Jerusalem. With the neighboring al-Aqsa Mosque, its history and deep significance suffuse the entire holy city.

The thousand-year-old craft of bandhani, or tie-dying, still practiced in Muslim homes in northwestern India, probably originated in Central Asia. It gave rise to the American bandanna and possibly also to the red-checked head cloth of Arabia.

Any taxi driver in Cairo knows Fishawy's Café. His father certainly knew it too, and so did his grandfather. Clamorous and unglamorous, no café in Egypt is more beloved, nor more steeped in Egyptian social history.

The northernmost of the great East-West trade routes of antiquity, the Nomad Route reached from the Danube's mouth to Mongolia and beyond. Much of it was controlled by the various nomadic tribes of the Asian steppes.

Sculptor, luthier, painter and mechanical engineer, Kahlil Gibran—no, not that Kahlil Gibran—has put his prodigious talents to work in the South Boston neighborhood where he was born, and has found success in every field.