Islamic Empires: The Cities that Shaped Civilization: From Mecca to Dubai

by Justin Marozzi

Overview

A history of the rich and diverse civilizations over fifteen centuries of Islam seen through its greatest cities.

Islamic civilization was once the envy of the world. From a succession of glittering, cosmopolitan capitals, Islamic empires lorded it over the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and swathes of the Indian subcontinent, while Europe cowered feebly at the margins. For centuries the caliphate was both ascendant on the battlefield and triumphant in the battle of ideas, its cities unrivaled powerhouses of artistic grandeur, commercial power, spiritual sanctity, and forward-looking thinking, in which nothing was off limits.

Islamic Empires is a history of this rich and diverse civilization told through its greatest cities over the fifteen centuries of Islam, from its earliest beginnings in Mecca in the seventh century to the astonishing rise of Doha in the twenty-first.

Marozzi brilliantly connects the defining moments in Islamic history: from the Prophet Mohammed receiving his divine revelations in Mecca and the First Crusade of 1099 to the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 and the phenomenal creation of the merchant republic of Beirut in the nineteenth century, and how this world is continuing to change today.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781643136936
Publisher:	Pegasus Books
Publication date:	04/13/2021
Pages:	512
Sales rank:	488,408
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Justin Marozzi is a former Financial Times and Economist foreign correspondent. His previous books include South from Barbary, Tamerlane, Conqueror of the World, and The Man Who Invented History. His last book, Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood won the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations ix

List of Maps xi

A Note on Spelling xvi

Preface xvii

1 7th Century: Mecca - Mother of All Cities 1

2 8th Century: Damascus - The Perfumed Paradise 25

3 9th Century: Baghdad - City of Peace, City of Blood 49

4 10th Century: Cordoba - Ornament of the World 75

5 11th Century: Jerusalem - The Contested City 101

6 12th Century: Cairo - The City Victorious 127

7 13th Century: Fez - The Athens of Africa 151

8 14th Century: Samarkand - Garden of the Soul 173

9 15th Century: Constantinople - City of the World's Desire 197

10 16th Century: Kabul - A Garden in the Mountains 231

11 17th Century: Isfahan - Half the World 255

12 18th Century: Tripoli - Pirates' Lair 279

13 19th Century: Beirut - Playground of the Levant 305

14 20th Century: Dubai - Build It and They Will Come 336

15 21st Century: Doha - City of Pearls 363

Notes 387

Bibliography 404

Acknowledgements 421

Index 427

Editorial Reviews

11/18/2019

Marozzi (Tamerlane), a former foreign correspondent for the BBC and the Economist, combines travel writing and history in this fluid, enriching series of vignettes about the great cities of Islamic civilization. Focusing on one city to represent each century since Islam’s founding in the early seventh century CE, the work starts with Mecca and ends with Doha, with stops including Fez and Cordoba in the west, and Samarkand and Kabul in the east. The range and detail of Marozzi’s research brings a welcome variation on the standard view of Islamic history. Marozzi doesn’t skimp on historical details (sometimes at the narrative’s expense) but the travel writing is fresh, with first-person accounts of the author’s peregrinations and stories of contemporary inhabitants interwoven into the recitation of names and dates. Most importantly, Marozzi provides a contrast to one-sided narratives of the Islamic world, as it showcases 15 centuries of sophisticated and cosmopolitan cities full of intellectual, artistic, and economic power. While the work can feel aimless, it is nonetheless enjoyable and deeply informative, and will appeal to anyone interested in the diversity of Islamic culture. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

Mr. Marozzi is an accomplished and ambitious writer. His latest work is Islamic Empires, a sweeping, vibrant and often irrepressible account of the cities most emblematic of Islam since that religion was promulgated by the Prophet Muhammed in the early seventh century. The charm of this book lies in the fact that it is so obviously the adult sublimation of a boyhood passion for the lands and history of Islam. Mr. Marozzi is now 49, but his prose often has the wonderment of a young man who has devoured a shelf of books and is dying to tell everyone about the things he has read. Like an erudite magpie, he gathers material from every available source—primary texts, both religious and historical, as well as a profusion of secondary ones—and weaves it all together with dexterity."

Wall Street Journal

A relief from the often downbeat tone of literature about the region.

The Economist

"Justin Marozzi is a precious rarity—a serious traveler who is also a real writer, with a wonderful feel for language, a gift for narrative and an enviable sensitivity and lightness of touch."

William Dalrymple [praise for Justin Marozzi]

"Outstanding. Marozzi is the most brilliant of the new generation of travel writer-historians."

Sunday Telegraph (Books of the Year) [praise for Justin Marozzi]

2019-12-03
A British scholar and journalist journeys through a complicated history of Islam via the major Muslim cities throughout the ages, from Mecca to Constantinople to Doha.

Former Financial Times and Economist foreign correspondent Marozzi (Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, 2014, etc.) fashions a skillful overview of the important seats of Muslim power while resisting narratives of "faith and fable" in the process. This is especially difficult regarding the earliest capital of Mecca, "mother of all cities," much excoriated by the first chroniclers after the Prophet Mohammed died in 632; it was a recalcitrant city of trade essentially taken by the prophet and forced to convert to the new faith. This military struggle formed the pattern for much of Islam's history over the following centuries as Mohammed, according to Marozzi, was sanctioned by the Quran to conquer. "Reaping the spoils of war was not just a pleasant consequence of victory in battle," writes the author. "Having received divine sanction in the Quran, it was far more important than that." The momentum of the conquerors took them into Damascus, "the perfumed city" that "has always soared high in Arab affections." Subsequently, Marozzi moves from century to century into Córdoba, Jerusalem, Cairo, Fez, Samarkand, Constantinople, Kabul, Isfahan, Tripoli, Beirut, Dubai, and Doha. While the author stresses that this is a personal selection of 15 cities, he notes that he kept in mind what Herodotus saw as the importance of focusing on "great and marvelous deeds"—and each of these cities certainly witnessed their fair share of those. In the modern age, Marozzi covers the Taliban takeover of Kabul (and the terrible changes wrought by decades of war) and the astonishing urban transformations of the once-provincial cities of Dubai and Doha. The author is fair in his assessment of these significant cities and what they have meant to Islam as a whole, and his enthusiasm is infectious.

A rich foray into the history of Islam and the emergence of key cities as capitals of commerce, culture, and conquest.

Kirkus Reviews