About Muraqqa

Muraqqa (Muraqqa’) can be literally translated from Arabic as “a collection of fragments”, however, it is a term applied to Islamic art denoting an album comprised of various samples of paintings and miniatures, calligraphic work, and a range of sketches. Drawing upon the implications of the term itself, and applying it within a contemporary context, Muraqqa will be a source accessible via the internet consisting of various forms of contemporary arts that can be placed within such an “album” cataloguing a wide spectrum of fine art, architecture, design, photography, fashion, music, and cinema.

It will include articles consisting of features on these arts in the most general sense, but will also examine them within a vast scope of social, political, anthropological, theoretical, economic, commercial, and various other contexts. Muraqqa also strives to be selectively all inclusive while maintaining the highest possible standards of taste, and will also provide a list of galleries and museums worth visiting, notable exhibitions, cutting-edge artists, magazines and other related sources dedicated to the arts in the Middle East, arts related charities and foundations, an individual section listing books and catalogues published on art, and book reviews.

Once Muraqqa establishes its presence on the web, it will release a widely circulated periodical, acting as a tangible “album”, which will possess the presentation of an ultra-glossy magazine, but will attempt to contain the most progressive and informative material on contemporary and modern art produced in Western and Central Asia, North Africa, Asia Minor and their respective diasporas that will engage the general public in the “Middle Eastern” arts world, as well as to stimulate the production of innovative work and the conducting of research within these artistic fields.

It intends to ignite an interventional dialogue between these regions that can collectively be referred to as the “Middle East” and the Western world, and to educate the world at large about the contemporary arts of the Middle East.