The House of War: The struggle between Christendom and the Caliphate by Simon Mayall
Simon Mayall’s book is emphatically concerned with conflict, about the great killing fields where the two neighbouring civilisations met and clashed
Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah, by Nile Green
Nile Green has done a most excellent job, in tracing the various careers, achievements, manipulations and ambitions of Ikbal Shah and his son Idries Shah, who both made enthusiastic use of alternative identities and pen names.
“The Messenger; The Meanings of the Life of Muhammad” by Tariq Ramadan
… they must also embrace other aspects from the lifetime of the Prophet: the freedom of women to speak out, to pray, study and learn
“Muhammad's Grave: Death Rites and the Making of Islamic Society” by Leor Halevi
From these tenuous trails of historical memory, a whole rigid belief system would however be created by literate, male scholars to gradually strangle the freedom of a living, inspirational religion with the chains of clerical authority and a scarcely credible mythology
“Britain & the Islamic World, 1558-1713”, Gerald Maclean and Nabil Mattar
the two authors keep throwing open the windows to offer us fresh insights, new horizons of inquiry, as well as skipping out through a back door to give us a witheringly close examination of the fabric.
“In the Name of God: A History of Christian and Muslim Intolerance” by Selina O’Grady
So when we hear how the Huguenots of France, or the Jews and Moors of Andalucia are to be protected and tolerated by a generous peace settlement, we need to set the alarm clock for the inevitable persecution that is to come.
Book review: “Medina in Birmingham, Najaf in Brent: Inside British Islam” by Innes Bowen
Over 60% of Muslims in Britain come from the lands of the old Raj - Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. So Urdu and English are the languages of communication in British Islam, not modern classical Arabic, let alone Koranic Arabic.
Book review: “Sufism & Surrealism” by Adonis
... for the small readership who can engage in the poetics of two cultures situated in two different ages, it is a work of extraordinary richness.
Book review: “The Man Who Created The Middle East: A Story of Empire, Conflict and the Sykes-Picot Agreement” by Christopher Simon Sykes
... he started out as a convinced imperialist but was so disgusted by British rule in India (and French rule in North Africa) that he eventually realized that mere administrative efficiency should never be exchanged for freedom.
Book review: “Al-Britannia, My Country” by James Fergusson
Three children of Pakistani bus drivers are now working at the very peak of Britain's meritocratic society; Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, Baroness Warsi and cabinet minister Sajid Javid.
Book review - “Victorian Muslim: Abdullah Quilliam and Islam in the West”, edited by Jamie Gilham and Ron Geaves
Queen Victoria not only read Quilliam’s book on Islam but bought copies for all her children.
Book review of “Islamic Empires: Fifteen cities that define a Civilization”, by Justin Marozzi
His chapter on the city of Samarkand, informed by an earlier biography of Tamburlane, is so knowledgeable and intimate that one is in danger of briefly warming to this murderous but garden-loving tyrant, worthy of being listed alongside Stalin, Mao and Hitler.