Islam: A New History from Muhammad to the Present

Historian Tolan (Faces of Muhammad) traces in this vibrant and sweeping survey the 1,400-year evolution of Islam. Stressing Islam’s conceptual unity (“we are one umma”) and diverse reality, he tells its history by stitching together the stories of key figures. Among them are Um Waraqa, a woman who, at Mohammad’s request, led prayer at the second mosque in Medina; Rabia al-Adawi, an eighth-century flute player and founder of Sufism who rejected her many suitors to devote herself to writing poetry “to her one true love, God”; and early 15th-century Chinese Muslim admiral Lzheng He, who helped spread Islam to the Philippines and Indonesia while forging diplomatic and economic ties. Turning to the present day, Tolan highlights gaps between Quranic principle and Islamic societies (especially concerning the rights of women), and frames the clashes between politicized reactions to Islam—including fundamentalist terrorist organizations and an “anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extreme right”—as a continuation of contests over the faith that have “been playing out for centuries.” Tolan’s impressive geographic scope and fine-grained historical detail combine for a masterful portrait of Islam as a religion and culture. The result is the definitive history of a complex faith. (May)