Islam

Islam A new history from Muhammad to the present

John Victor Tolan, 1959-

Book - 2025

A concise new narrative history of Islam that draws on the transformative insights of recent research to emphasize the diversity and dynamism of the traditionToday'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 histo...ry 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.

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2nd Floor New Shelf 297/Tolan (NEW SHELF) Due Nov 6, 2025
Subjects
Islam > History.
Islam > Histoire.
Islamic countries > History.
Pays musulmans > Histoire.
Published
Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press [2025]
Language
English
French
Main Author
John Victor Tolan, 1959- (author)
Item Description
"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.
Physical Description
xvii, 283 pages : maps ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780691263533
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction
  • Part I. Foundations
  • Chapter 1. The Quran and the Birth of a Community of Believers
  • Chapter 2. The Umayyad Dynasty and the Birth of an Imperial Religion
  • Chapter 3. Abbasid Baghdad: Crucible of a Multiconfessional Civilization
  • Chapter 4. The Three Caliphates of the Year 1000
  • Part II. Expansion
  • Chapter 5. Invasions and Reconfigurations of the Muslim World, Eleventh-Thirteenth Centuries
  • Chapter 6. The World of Ibn Battuta
  • Chapter 7. Muslim Empires (Fourteenth-Seventeenth Centuries)
  • Part III. Modernities
  • Chapter 8. Colonization and Its Discontents, 1798-1918
  • Chapter 9. Decolonization, Nationalism, and the Emergence of Political Islam in the Twentieth Century
  • Chapter 10. Between Reform and Radicalism: Being Muslim in the Twenty-First Century
  • Notes
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Booklist Review

This historical account of the Muslim world from the time of the Prophet to the present aims to show that Muslim civilizations have always drawn from the cultures around them. As a result, Islam--both the religious practice and the civilization--is both temporally and geographically diverse. Tolan (Faces of Muhammad, 2019) covers the material in chronological chapters grouped into three parts: Foundations covers the time from the Prophet to just before the advent of the Crusades; Expansion starts with the Crusades and ends with pre-modern Muslim empires; and Modernities moves from colonialism through post-colonialism and contemporary times. Each chapter starts with an introduction or highlight from that period before launching into a roughly chronological history and commentary. Given the length of the book and the vast breadth of the topic, Tolan's coverage is not complete or overly deep. However, the narrative does cover major events in the Muslim world and presents sufficient evidence to make a compelling case for diversity, tolerance, and pluralism within Islam. While some strands of contemporary Islam tend to be strict, this book shows the diversity within Islam. A recommended intro to the history of the Muslim world.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Tolan (Faces of Muhammad) traces in this vibrant and sweeping survey the 1,400-year evolution of Islam. Stressing Islam's conceptual unity ("we are one umma") and diverse reality, he tells its history by stitching together the stories of key figures. Among them are Um Waraqa, a woman who, at Mohammad's request, led prayer at the second mosque in Medina; Rabia al-Adawi, an eighth-century flute player and founder of Sufism who rejected her many suitors to devote herself to writing poetry "to her one true love, God"; and early 15th-century Chinese Muslim admiral Lzheng He, who helped spread Islam to the Philippines and Indonesia while forging diplomatic and economic ties. Turning to the present day, Tolan highlights gaps between Quranic principle and Islamic societies (especially concerning the rights of women), and frames the clashes between politicized reactions to Islam--including fundamentalist terrorist organizations and an "anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant extreme right"--as a continuation of contests over the faith that have "been playing out for centuries." Tolan's impressive geographic scope and fine-grained historical detail combine for a masterful portrait of Islam as a religion and culture. The result is the definitive history of a complex faith. (May)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Wide-ranging, compact history of Islam. Tolan hopes to provide a balanced and useful story of Islamic faith and culture, as seen through the lens of a non-Muslim, academic historian. Overall, his work can be useful and worthwhile, though it can also border on tedious. Tolan has crafted a relatively short book in which he aims to fit a cumbersome subject--the history of a major world religion and cultural presence across 15 centuries and most of the world. As a reference work for students and academics, it is highly useful; for the lay reader looking for a broader understanding of Islam, it may prove dense. Tolan records a history replete with power struggles, violence, conquest, and dynastic leadership, punctuated with examples of science, philosophy, culture, and tolerance. After recounting the life of Muhammad and the development of the Quran, the author delves into the power struggles and political dynasties that followed. From the Umayyad caliphate to the Fatimid caliphate, from the influence and legacy of Saladin to the lengthy history of the Ottoman Empire, under Suleiman the Magnificent and others, Tolan packs his pages with facts about centuries of Muslim power struggles. The Crusades, expansion of Islam into Spain and into Central Asia, and Islamic interactions with other religions and cultures are also important topics. One fascinating chapter devoted to Ibn Battuta's wide-ranging travels in the 14th century provides great insight into the cultures across the Muslim world of that time. Finally, Tolan delves into Islam in more modern eras, bringing the reader up to the present day. "Today's struggle between rival factions of Islam has been playing out for centuries," he explains, and indeed, in preceding pages the reader sees ample evidence of the truth in this statement. Well researched and objective, if somewhat uninviting. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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