Tracing its origins and development, Bloom reveals that the Minaret, long understood to have been invented in the early years of Islam as the place from which the muezzin gives the call to prayer, was actually invented some two centuries later to be a visible symbol of Islam. From early Islam to the modern world, and from Iran, Egypt, Turkey and India to West and East Africa, the Yemen and Southeast Asia, this richly illustrated book is a sweeping tour of the minaret's position as the symbol of Islam.
