The Modern Struggle Between Faith and Reason

The Islamic Enlightenment

A revelatory history that uncovers the modern foundations of the Islamic world.

An eye-opening, well-written and very timely book, which can help us understand better the complex relationship between the Muslim world and modernity. While both Islamic extremists and Western bigots find it convenient to stress the incompatibility of Islam and modernity, Christopher de Bellaigue shows that Islam is whatever Muslims make of it, and that at least some Muslims have made of it something very modern.

YUVAL NOAH HARARI author of SAPIENS and HOMO DEUS

This book is an enlightenment in itself, and a salient one in this age when everyone seems to feel entitled to a firm opinion about Islam and Muslims.

A highly original and informative survey of the clashes between Islam and modernity in Istanbul, Cairo and Tehran in the last two hundred years. Brilliant.

Christopher de Bellaigue has long been one of our most resourceful and stimulating interpreters of realities veiled by fear and prejudice. In The Islamic Enlightenment, he cuts through the complacent opposition of Islam-versus-modernity to reveal a fascinating world: one in which complex human beings constantly change, improvise and adjust under the pressures of history. It is the best sort of book for our disordered days: timely, urgent and illuminating.

This is a nuanced and empathetic view of the Islamic world at one of its most challenging and enthralling moments: its history-changing encounter with western modernity… At a time of profound suspicion and mistrust between the West and the Muslim world, this is an important, beautifully written book that offers a powerful corrective to the notion that Islam contains an inbuilt prejudice against modernity. It strikes a blow, as the most readable writers do, for common humanity.

It would be hard to imagine a more timely book than The Islamic Enlightenment.

Luminous... [De Bellaigue] is a wonderful narrator, and these chapters burst with colour and detail ... A dazzling feat of erudition and storytelling. It is also a necessary work, challenging many of the assumptions that animate contemporary narratives about Islam.

A vigorous and thoughtful book … De Bellaigue has written a (beautifully illustrated) book that prompts an important conversation, and is extremely useful for our times. As well as introducing neglected histories and characters about which and whom we need to care, the work itself incarnates the essence of enlightenment.

A tale of reform and reaction, innovation and betrayal ... His cast of characters — “the Muslim pioneers we never thought existed” — is presented with flair and an acute eye… This is a civilised and beautifully written story of the advances and reverses of a great civilisation that lost its own way, was shunted into cul-de-sacs by predatory European imperialists — and yet was and is constantly searching out ways to bounce back.

At a time when the gulf between Islamc and the West yawns distressingly wide, De Bellaigue’s book is a welcome and surprising corrective… An invigoratingly erudite read

Timely, thoughtful and provocative.

A radical rethinking of the way in which Islam is perceived in the west.

A brilliantly learned and entertaining study of a topic that is of far more than merely antiquarian interest: the encounter between the Islamic world and the post-Enlightenment West.

De Bellaigue has reported as a journalist from Iran and Turkey, and his telling of his renaissance as it manifested itself in Tehran, Istanbul and Cairo is as thorough in research as it is rich in detail.

[De Bellaigue] possesses a sure sense of place and of social and historical context… This is a rich and surprising history that fully justifies its provocative title

Bellaigue knows how to spin a yarn. The book is a great read, its story is far too little known, and he's certainly done his research ... Bellaigue throws up all sorts of fascinating historical facts and anecdotes, bringing to life the long, transformative nineteenth century ... His enormous cast of characters is colourful and varied each a hero in the struggle to usher in a truly modern Muslim world

A sweeping and hugely engaging book that throws much-needed light on modern Islam.

This fascinating book prompts us to question how we think about the world, and challenges those in West and East who peddle the dangerous myth of civilisational conflict

This is an interesting, well-written and thoughtful book… He deserves credit for engaging with a highly complex and equally pertinent subject at a time when Islam is always in the news especially in the Western world

Highly readable… The Islamic Enlightenment has a bone to pick with those who argue that Islam needs to become more civilised.

A refreshingly optimistic counterpoint to the idea that Muslim and Western world-views are doomed to clash.

A tremendous combination of deep learning, forceful argument and arresting prose, The Islamic Enlightenment is bold, bracing and important

That there has been an Islamic Enlightenment at all will come as news to many. De Bellaigue’s account of the “very broad church” of Islam in the modern world is splendid and timely.

Anthony Gottlieb, author of THE DREAM OF ENLIGHTENMENT

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE 2017 
 
'An eye-opening, well-written and very timely book' Yuval Noah Harari 
 
'The best sort of book for our disordered days: timely, urgent and illuminating' Pankaj Mishra 
 
'It strikes a blow…for common humanity' Sunday Times 
 
The Muslim world has often been accused of a failure to modernise and adapt. Yet in this sweeping narrative and provocative retelling of modern history, Christopher de Bellaigue charts the forgotten story of the Islamic Enlightenment – the social movements, reforms and revolutions that transfigured the Middle East from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Modern ideals and practices were embraced across the region, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from purdah and the development of democracy. 
 
The Islamic Enlightenment looks behind the sensationalist headlines in order to foster a genuine understanding of Islam and its relationship to the West. It is essential reading for anyone engaged in the state of the world today.

Muhammad Mossadegh and a Very British Coup

Patriot of Persia

A brilliant biography of one of the great political eccentrics of modern times - Muhammad Mossadegh

[It] is about a wildly popular figure who promised Iran's future would not be dependent on paying homage to the west: Mohammed Mossadegh, who was brutally removed from power in a coup orchestrated by the CIA in 1953. De Bellaigue is an outstanding journalist and you can tell why

De Bellaigue's book is unsurpassed as a rounded portrait of Mossadegh

De Bellaigue portrays some fascinating, and often farcical, stories of political life in Iran

The  author shows his intimate understanding and knowledge of of Middle  Eastern politics… A timely warning of the consequences of Western  intervention

A vivid, informed portrait of Iran’s liberal, nationalist,  eccentric prime minister… it illuminates a complex country and its  distrust in the West

On 19 August 1953 the British and American intelligence agencies launched a desperate coup against a cussed, bedridden 72-year-old. His name was Muhammad Mossadegh, the Iranian prime minister. To Winston Churchill he was a lunatic, determined to humiliate Britain. To President Eisenhower he was delivering Iran to the Soviets. Mossadegh must go. 
 
And so he did, in one of the most dramatic episodes in modern Middle Eastern history. But the countries that overthrew him would, in time, deeply regret it. Mossadegh was one of the first liberals of the Middle East, a man whose conception of liberty was as sophisticated as any in Europe or America. He wanted friendship with the West - not slavish dependence. 
 
Here, for the first time, is the political and personal life of a remarkable patriot, written by our foremost observer of Iran. Above all, the life of Muhammad Mossadegh is a warning to today's occupants of Downing Street and the White House, as they commit us all to intervention in a volatile and unpredictable region.

Christopher de Bellaigue

The Rise of Suleyman the Magnificent

Venice, 1522. Intelligence arrives from the east confirming Europe's greatest fear: the vastly rich Ottoman Sultan has all he needs to wage total war - and his sights are set on Rome. With Christendom divided, Suleyman the Magnificent has his hand on its throat. 
 
From the palaces of Istanbul to the blood-soaked fields of central Europe and the scorched coasts of north Africa, The Lion House tells the true story of two civilisations in an existential duel and the rise of the most feared man of the sixteenth century. It is a tale of the timeless pull of power, dangerous to live with, deadly to live without.

Christopher de Bellaigue

The Lion House

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