Muslim Europe

'Vital, important' WILLIAM DALRYMPLE 'Perspective-shattering' CAROLINE SANDERSON 'Offers a fresh, bracing perspective on European history' THE TIMES For over 1,400 years, Muslims have been an integral part of Europe's story, yet their contributions have been pushed to the margins or erased altogether. In Muslim Europe, award-winning author Tharik Hussain restores this forgotten history. In a revelatory journey across the continent, we tread in the footsteps of the first Muslims who arrived on European soil in 647 AD. We travel through Cyprus, Sicily, Malta, Portugal and Spain, learning about the continent's great Caliphate culture and Muslim commonwealth, encountering red-haired European Sultans and Arabic-speaking Christian Kings, the Sufi lodges of Cyprus and the palaces of Sicily. Forgotten Muslim pioneers like Abbas Ibn Firnas gave us flight, Ibn Rushd gifted us modern philosophy and the cross fertilisation of faiths and cultures birthed Europe's Christian Renaissance. For twelve centuries, Muslim Europe was a sanctuary for the continent's Jews. Recalling the poignant voices of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut and Abraham Ibn Daoud, Jews flourished under Muslim protection triggering the Jewish Golden Age. For the first time, Muslim Europe lays bare the cause of our collective Islamic amnesia by mapping Europe's 'anti-Muslim DNA' through medieval Crusade narratives and nation-building myths. But Islam was never a sideshow to Western culture; it was integral to its development for over 1,400 years. Deep, learned and utterly convincing, this first Muslim Eurocentric history of the continent dismantles the myth of Europe's Judaeo-Christian cultural foundation, and offers nothing less than a profound shift in our self-understanding. 'Uncovers a world of which few are fully aware' COLIN THUBRON

Tharik Hussain is an award-winning author and journalist specialising in global Muslim heritage and culture. He has written for newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Telegraph, magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, and broadcast media such as Al Jazeera and the BBC. For the latter, he produced award-winning radio program America's Mosques. Tharik has written or contributed to travel books on areas including the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe, and his book on Islam in the Western Balkans, Minarets in the Mountains, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, and won the Adele Evans Award.