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Tag Archives: Islam
Laughing all the Way to the Mosque
Laughing all the Way to the Mosque: The Misadventures of a Muslim Woman© 2016 Zarqa Nawaz240 pages ‘A hit religious comedy show about Muslims worshipping in a broken-down mosque, within a broken-down church, living in a tiny town in the … Continue reading
COVID Reviews #3: Romans, Dogs, and Saudis
I don’t know if anyone misses my usual chatty, sometimes florid reviews, but they’re impossible to do on a phone. More mini-reviews it is! Continuing my onslaught of the TBR pile, I finished Lives of Famous Romans, by Olivia Coolridge. … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged animal domestication, Arabia, Central Asia, history, Islam, Middle East, Persia-Iran, Rome
4 Comments
The Looming Tower
The Looming Tower: Al-Queda and the Road to 9/11 © 2006 Lawrence Wright 480 pages “[…] we’re told that they were zealots, fueled by religious fervor…religious fervor. And if you live to be a thousand years old, will that make … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews, World Affairs
Tagged Arabia, crime, Egypt, history, Islam, Middle East, nine-eleven, politics, Politics-CivicInterest
4 Comments
Inside the Kingdom
Inside the Kingdom: Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia432 pages© 2009 Robert Lacey When I first began paying attention to politics, the cozy relationship between Saudi Arabia and the DC power-caste confused me to no end. … Continue reading
When Asia was the World
When Asia Was the World: Traveling Merchants, Scholars, Warriors, and Monks Who Created the ‘Riches of the East© 2009 Stewart Gordon256 pages When Asia was the World revisits, through the lives of traveling monks, traders, and warriors, the extraordinary vistas and … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Asia, Buddhism, Central Asia, China, history, Islam, trade
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In God’s Path
In God’s Path: the Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire© 2015 Robert Hoyland303 pages A Roman author referred to the Roman and Persian empires as the two eyes of the world — but they didn’t see the … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Arabia, Central Asia, Eastern Rome/Byzantine, history, Islam, Mediterranean, Middle East, Persia-Iran
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After the Prophet
After the Prophet: the Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split © 2009 Lesley Hazleton256 pages When Muhammad lay in his deathbed, legend has it that he cried to God for pity on those who would follow him. With no sons and … Continue reading
This week: the usual suspects
Well, dear readers, it’s another month! I have a serious itch for science and science fiction at the moment, so I have no less than five potential science reads stacked up now, and three potential SF books. Among the numbers…Domesticated: Evolution in … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Arabia, Christianity, Eastern Rome/Byzantine, history, Islam, Middle East, military, Near East, Orthodoxy, Persia, Persia-Iran
8 Comments
Destiny, Disrupted
Destiny, Disruted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes© 2009 Tamim Ansary416 pages When Tamim Ansary was a boy, he loved history. Specifically, he loved narrativehistory, the kind of drama that brought the past to life. The problem was that the … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Arabia, history, Islam, Middle East, Near East, Persia, Persia-Iran, survey, Turkey
3 Comments
The Lost History of Christianity
The Lost History of Christianity: The Thousand Year Golden Age of the Church in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia — And How It Died© 2008 Philip Jenkins315 pages For the first millennium of the church’s history, Europe was less … Continue reading
Posted in history, Reviews
Tagged Asia, Christianity, Eastern Christianity, Eastern Rome/Byzantine, Egypt, history, Islam, Middle East, Near East, Persia, Persia-Iran, religion
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