Islam : a new history from Muhammad to the present / John Tolan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tolan, John Victor, 1959- author.

Standardized Title:

Nouvelle histoire de l'islam. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

Islam--History.

Islam.

Islamic countries--History.

Islamic countries.

Physical Description:

xvii, 283 pages : maps ; 25 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [2025]

Language Note:

In English, translated from the French.

Summary:

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the tradition. Today's Muslim world is in upheaval: legalists and mystics engage in intense debates, radical groups invoke Sharia, Muslim immigrants in the West face prejudice and discrimination, and Muslim feminists advocate new interpretations of the Koran. At the same time, Islam is mischaracterized as unitary and unchanging by people ranging from right-wing Western politicians claiming that Islam is incompatible with democracy to conservative Muslims dreaming of returning to the golden age of the prophet. Against this contentious backdrop, this book provides an essential and timely new history of the religion in all its astonishing richness and diversity as it has been practiced by Muslims around the world, from seventh-century Mecca to today. Most popular histories of Islam continue to repeat conventional pietistic accounts. In contrast, John Tolan draws on decades of new historical research that has transformed knowledge of the origins and development of the Muslim faith. He shows how the youngest of the three great monotheisms arose in close contact with Jewish, Christian, and other religious traditions in a mixture of cultures, including Arab, Greek, Persian, and Turkish; how Islam spread across an enormous territory encompassing hundreds of languages and cultures; how Muslims have forged widely different beliefs and practices over fourteen centuries; and how Islamic history provides crucial context for understanding contemporary debates in the Muslim world. At a time when much talk about Islam is filled with misunderstanding, stereotypes, and bias, this book provides a fresh and lucid portrait of the continuous and ongoing transformations of a religion of tremendous variety and complexity. -- Dust jacket.

"In this book, John Tolan shows how the youngest of the three great monotheisms developed, not in isolation but in close and constant contact with Jewish, Christian, and other religious traditions in a mixture of cultures: Arab, Greek, Persian, Turkish and others. Covering over 1,400 years of history, Tolan analyzes the foundations of Islam, its expansion across the globe, and its transformations over the centuries. This history--comprehensive without being encyclopedic--shows us that the conflicts between different visions of Islam today, from the puritanical to the legalistic to the mystical, are deeply embedded in Muslim history." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction

Part I: Foundations. The Quran and the birth of a community of believers

The Umayyad dynasty and the birth of an imperial religion

Abbasid Baghdad : crucible of a multiconfessional civilization

The three caliphates of the year 1000

Part II: Expansion. Invasions and reconfigurations of the Muslim world, eleventh-thirteenth centuries

The world of Ibn Battuta

Muslim empires (fourteenth-seventeenth centuries)

Part III: Modernities. Colonization and its discontents, 1798-1918

Decolonization, nationalism, and the emergence of political Islam in the twentieth century

Between reform and radicalism : being Muslim in the twenty-first century.

Notes:

"This book is not simply a translation of the French edition but a re-writing and expansion. I have in particular expanded the treatment of Islam in the United States and the United Kingdom in chapter 10." -- Page xi.

Translation of Nouvelle histoire de l'islam, 2022 Éditions Tallandier, France.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 251-264) and index.

ISBN:

9780691263533

0691263531

9780691265797

0691265798

OCLC:

1516307363

Publisher Number:

CIPO000217544