Join Farrokh Derakhshani for an inside look into the 2022 Aga Khan Award for Architecture, one of the most prestigious architectural awards in the world. Find out how one is awarded this notable prize, hear about the latest winners, and learn how the creation of the award changed the understanding of architecture forever.

Join celebrated artist Ahmad Angawi as he explores how Jeddah has been influenced by many cultures, from Morocco to Indonesia, and how Jeddah has influenced them back. Learn about the cultural exchanges that pilgrimages brought, explore the traditional woodworking that Ahmad is helping to keep alive, and discover how traditional crafts can cooperate with this rapid technological world not only to survive in it, but to improve it.

Join Ulrike Al-Khamis for an inside look at the Aga Khan Museum's latest exhibition in Toronto, Canada. IMAGE? The Power of the Visual explores image-making over the centuries, exploring through the lens of Islamic art from across many periods and cultures. We are surrounded, in fact inundated, by images and we often have little time to contemplate their deeper meaning; IMAGE? aims to open the visitor’s eyes to the power of images that surround us every day, be they in museums and galleries, on our smartphones or in the mass media.

Join Anna Leone for a tour through time as she explores life in North Africa from the Roman era to today. Find out how (olive) oil has been driving the world economy since antiquity, how you can tell a lot about a time period by its frying pans, and how superstitions about their brothers defined how Amazigh women weave their textiles.

How did the discovery of oil transform Saudi Arabia's cities and its architecture? How can art and architecture come together to capture the spirit of modernism in a nation known more for tradition?  Join this conversation with Abdulrahman and Turki Gazzaz, two architect brothers, to discover how their curiosity to understand their home city of Jeddah led to the rise of "Saudi Modern," a project to discover, record, and capture the spirit of modernist architecture and urbanism across the country. 

Join Wael Sabry on his quest to save the ancient craft of Kundekari - complex wooden geometry. Sabry is  tracking down the few remaining master carpenters in Turkey and Egypt, trying to learn their carefully-guarded  secrets, hidden even from father to son.  Discover how he is using technology to save this remarkable craft from disappearance and inventing  new machinery that might give this craft a new life.  

Join Arthur Bijl, Hutton McRoberts Assistant Curator of Ottoman, Middle Eastern and Asian Arms and Armour at The Wallace Collection for a fascinating conversation about the social history of arms and armour. Discover how what we think of as 'weapons' today were once also fashion statements, works of art, and status symbols in the pre-modern age. 

Join Kareem Ibrahim, an architect and CEO of Takween Integrated Community Development, as he reveals  an Egyptian hidden gem,  the ancient city of Esna, and an innovative project to introduce sustainable tourism through community "site-doing"rather than site-seeing!

Join Glaire Anderson for a fascinating conversation about one of great inventors of Andalusia: Abbas Ibn Firnas, who successfully invented a glider plane in the 9th century, and undertook the first known flight when in his 60s!  Find out about this fascinating man, his many inventions, and the relationship between science and religion in Muslim Spain. 

Join Matt Saba for a fascinating conversation about the magnificent palaces built by the Abbasid Caliphs of Iraq.  This dynasty realised that kingdoms invariably rose and fell, and that the longest lasting legacy of the reign would be literature.

This podcast is part of Converging Paths, an initiative organised by Asia House and the Barakat Trust exploring the arts and cultures of the Islamic World. 

Converging Paths is generously supported by the Altajir Trust and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture’s Education Programme.