Every Tradition Claims This Ground

Every Tradition Claims This Ground

Jerusalem, December 1496I have now stood at the sites that three major religions claim as the most sacred ground on earth. The Temple Mount. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The Al-Aqsa Mosque. In a radius of perhaps five hundred meters, the most contested geography...
A Different Kind of Faith

A Different Kind of Faith

Damascus, May 1497I have been sitting with scholars at the Umayyad Mosque for two weeks now. The conversations are conducted in a mixture of Arabic, which I have been learning since Constantinople, and a Latin that several of the scholars know as a courtesy to their...