Tony Blair wishes he had known more about the history of Islam before 9/11. “It is precisely here that I made a mistake,” the former British prime minister wrote in his memoir A Journey, admitting this ignorance caused him to underestimate the difficulty of invading Iraq. Later, Blair began studying the Qur’an every day, claiming that it’s impossible to fully understand global politics without being “faith-literate”.
Anyone who agrees should add James McDougall’s epic, authoritative and multilayered Worlds of Islam to their reading list. It covers 14 centuries of the world’s second-largest religion in just 521 pages, from the Prophet Muhammad to Muhammad Ali and beyond. As well as chronicling every key Muslim leader, theological dispute and military milestone, it also has an underlying mission.
“This book,” the Oxford professor declares in his introduction, “aims to bridge the very wide gap between the rich and detailed specialist scholarship about Islam… and the white noise of public debate, news and commentary.”
Much like its vast subject, McDougall’s narrative is constantly on the move. It begins in the Arabian Peninsula, then spreads to south Asia, west Africa and eventually just about everywhere. There are judicious summaries of how Islamic societies saw off the Christian Crusades, temporarily fell under European colonial rule and found ways of coexisting with capitalism in oil-rich Gulf states.
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“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!” Winston Churchill once lamented, illustrating the Islamophobia that still colours so many westerners’ perceptions today. McDougall does not shy away from profiling jihadist groups such as Islamic State and their barbaric philosophy. He is also, however, at pains to break down the crucial distinctions between a peace-loving creed, political Islamism and medieval-style atrocities.
In other words, McDougall firmly rejects the “Clash of Civilisations” theory adopted more than 30 years ago by US post-Cold War warriors to depict Islam as an alien, backwards monolith. Instead, he stresses the plural in Worlds of Islam’s title. Passages on food, clothes and music explain how diverse Muslim communities have often been “architects of modernity”, rather than barriers to it.
Worlds of Islam is a little too densely written, but for non-Muslim readers in particular it’s a powerful education. What a pity Tony Blair didn’t have a book like this on his desk 25 years ago.
