The MCA (Muslim Civilisations Abstracts) project is a new type of initiative designed to
give impetus to a global awareness of the benefits that can flow from
access to scholarship produced in Muslim contexts.
It
seeks to enable scholarly exchange about the diverse heritages and
cultures of Muslims, past and present through an open access initiative
that
reviews works from multiple contexts in multiple languages. The project
brings to the forefront often overlooked publications in languages such
as Arabic, Turkish and Persian, and will facilitate dialogue between
scholars from Muslim contexts. It aims to bridge
knowledge gaps created by language and financial barriers. Through this
endeavour, perspectives from under-represented societies can be brought
into the international domain of research.
Phase
three of the MCA project focuses on scholarship examining
socio-cultural and cosmopolitan processes along with aspects of material
culture in contemporary and historic
urban Muslim contexts. Cities reflect the material culture of their
geographical context through their architecture, although invasions and
colonisations have transformed these spaces and recent globalisation is
changing further the faces of modern urban centres.
Today more than ever the study of cities in the Muslim contexts
requires our attention, since the urban growth in Muslim majority
countries has surpassed that of cities in Europe and North America.
While in 1950 there was just one city in the Muslim world
with a population greater than two million residents, today there are
at least nine megalopolises in the Muslim world. Perhaps nowhere else is
the diversity of the Muslim world more tangible on such a magnified
scale.
Learn about other phases of the project, Encyclopaedias, Law and Ethics, Gender, Government, and Education, at Aga Khan University eCommons.