cover image PORTRAIT OF ISLAM: A Journey Through the Muslim World

PORTRAIT OF ISLAM: A Journey Through the Muslim World

Robin Laurance, . . Thames & Hudson, $34.95 (168pp) ISBN 978-0-500-51098-8

This lavishly illustrated coffee-table book uses Laurance's compelling photographs to elucidate the tremendous diversity of the Islamic world. It is arranged geographically, with sections on North and West Africa; the Near East and Middle East; South Asia; and Southeast Asia (including Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation). Photojournalist Laurance has an appreciation of apparent paradox, as displayed in one particularly memorable image: a Jordanian woman, dressed from head to toe in black with no part of her face showing, sits in an outdoor café sipping coffee and chatting on her cell phone. Some of the photos show very clearly the variance of daily life from one Muslim nation to another; in one picture, an oil worker in Algeria stops work to observe midday prayers in the scalding desert, while in another, young men carefully drag firewood through the snowy tundra of Azerbaijan. The short captions help readers understand the photos' significance, but they never become obtrusive; one particularly useful caption explains that a pictured 800-year-old adobe granary has 114 storage rooms—one for each surah (chapter) of the Qur'an. Images of a very modern life (the Kuwaiti stock exchange, a family of five riding a single motorcycle in Lahore, Pakistan) are juxtaposed with other pictures that seem timeless. In one such photo, two young boys bend over a copy of the Qur'an, which they must learn by heart; in another, two old men slaughter a sheep for the feast of Eid al-Adha. (Oct.)