The Islamic Spring
Pick an idea from the world of Islam and watch where it was born and how it traveled; pick a scholar and trace the cities of their life — from the revelation in Mecca and Medina across the lands of Islam to the modern age.
387 authors · 1,215 works · 4,863,283 passages · 265 concepts
The Qur'an is presented here as Muslims receive it — revelation, not the work of an author. Out of respect, this map shows no images of the Prophet ﷺ or other figures; people appear only as names and journeys.
Trace a scholar's life-journey
Follow where a scholar lived and taught — pin by pin, in the order they traveled.
Watch an idea spread
Pick any combination of ideas to see every place they appear, lit up across the centuries.
The oneness of God, the great theological schools, and the Muslim philosophers who wove reason and revelation together.
The revealed Book and its sciences, and the recorded words and deeds of the Prophet that stand beside it.
The sacred law and the science of how it is derived — the sources, the schools, and the great legal ideas.
The inner path to God — the stations of the soul, the cultivation of virtue, and the rites of worship at the heart of Muslim life.
The story of the early community and the caliphate, and the Shīʿī tradition of the Imams and the awaited one.
The lived festivals, life-cycle rites, and devotional customs of Muslim communities across the world.
This is an example — you’re tracing the life of al-Ghazālī(c. 1058–1111), from his birth in Ṭūs in Khurasan to his studies in Nishapur, his celebrated professorship at the Niẓāmiyya of Baghdad, his withdrawal and wandering through Damascus, Jerusalem, and Mecca, and his return home to Ṭūs, where he wrote the Revival of the Religious Sciences. Each pin is a place he lived; the line follows the order he traveled. Click any pin to read what happened there.
Now chart your own: trace a different scholar, or pick any idea above — tawḥīd, ijtihād, dhikr. Choose as many as you like.