Islamic culture is a term primarily used in secular academia to describe the cultural practices common to historically Islamic peoples. As the religion of Islam originated in 7th century Arabia, the early forms of Muslim culture were predominantly Arab. With the rapid expansion of the Islamic empires, Muslim culture has influenced and assimilated much from the Persian, Bangladeshi, Turkic, Pakistani, Mongol, Indian, Malay, Somali, Berber, Indonesian, Greek-Roman Byzantine, Spanish, Sicilian, Balkanic, Filipino and Western cultures.

Islamic culture is itself a contentious term. Muslims live in many different countries and communities, and it can be difficult to isolate points of cultural unity among Muslims, besides their adherence to the religion of Islam. Anthropologists and historians nevertheless study Islam as an aspect of, and influence on, culture in the regions where the religion is predominant.

The noted historian of Islam, Marshall Hodgson, noted the above difficulty of religious versus secular academic usage of the words "Islamic" and "Muslim" in his three-volume work, The Venture Of Islam. He proposed to resolve it by only using these terms for purely religious phenomena, and invented the term "Islamicate" to denote all cultural aspects of historically Muslim peoples. However, his distinction has not been widely adopted, and confusion remains in common usage of these article

The Walls are an Irish rock band. They were formed in 1998 by two ex-members of The Stunning.

Brothers Steve and Joe Wall (previously of The Stunning) returned to Ireland after a two-year failed label stint in London. Their Camden housemate Carl Harms joined the band on guitar and keyboard duties. Drummer Rory Doyle joined soon afterwards. They set up their own label, Earshot Records (later changing it to Dirtbird Records) and recorded and released a string of singles. A remix of one of the album tracks, "Bone Deep", clicked with radio and became a nationwide hit. Many of the songs have featured on a number of TV series and feature films such as Bachelors Walk, Dead Bodies, Goldfish Memory and On the Edge (starring Cillian Murphy).

The Walls heard rumour of a second Slane Castle date for U2 (as the first concert had sold out in hours). They sent four copies of their album to the band. Bono loved it and offered The Walls a support slot. That day the band played to their biggest crowd to date – around 80,000 people. "To the Bright and Shining Sun" was their next single. That June they supported Red Hot Chili Peppers. They spent the next year gigging while building their own studio in Dublin.

Abu Ameenah Bilal Philips (born Dennis Bradley Philips on 6 January 1946 in Jamaica) is a contemporary Islamic scholar, teacher, speaker, and author, resident in Qatar. He appears on Peace TV, which is a 24-hour Islamic satellite TV channel broadcasting to many countries around the world.

Philips was born on 6 January 1946 in Jamaica, but grew up in Canada, where he converted to Islam in 1972. He received his B.A. degree from the Islamic University of Medina and his M.A. in Aqeedah (Islamic Theology) from the King Saud University in Riyadh, then to the University of Wales, where he completed a PhD in Islamic Theology in the early 1990s. Philips comes from a family of educators, as both his parents were teachers and his grandfather was a Christian minister and Bible scholar.

In 1994 he founded (and continues to direct) an Islamic Information Center, now known as Discover Islam, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Islamic Online University has been founded by Dr. Bilal Philips as a completely tuition-free institution that is offering an online intensive, undergraduate, and graduate courses in Islamic Studies. The university offers a four year bachelor of arts degree in Islamic studies program.

Patrick "Pat" Condell (born 1949 or 1950), is an Irish-born English writer, political commentator, comedian and atheist internet personality. He performed alternative comedy shows during the 1980s and 1990s in the United Kingdom, and won a Time Out Comedy Award in 1991. He was also a regular panellist on BBC Radio 1's "Loose Talk".

From early 2007, he began posting short monologues denouncing religion to a number of video sharing websites, consequently receiving numerous death threats. His videos have been featured on many websites, including YouTube and LiveLeak. They have also been published to DVD, and also as a book of video transcripts. As of February 2012^[update], Pat Condell's YouTube channel has over 169,000 subscribers and 38 million views.

In a video titled "Vote small, think big", uploaded a fortnight before the 2010 UK general elections, and on his website, Pat Condell expressed support for the UK Independence Party. He is an atheist activist, a strong proponent of free speech and critic of religion.