Marmaduke Pickthall – författare

Oriental Encounters is the best introduction to Pickthall's work, a fictionalised account of his experiences, including tales he heard during his travels in Syria. Full of freshness and high spirits, Oriental Encounters details Pickthall's first encounters with the Middle East, his alienation from his fellow-Englishmen and his affection for the people of Syria and Palestine. Thanks to his two remarkable companions, Rashid and Suleyman, Pickthall smiles genially at the encounters and slowly discards his own European perspective.

The House of Islam explores the contrasting lifestyles of two Palestinian brothers. Milhem, an ambitious Ottoman official, borrows money from his brother Shems-ud-din, a merchant and holy man, to purchase a government post in Jerusalem - a bustling, sophisticated city. When Shems-ud-din's beloved daughter falls ill, he is forced to leave his tranquil dwelling to seek the aid of a Frankish doctor in Jerusalem. The ensuing adventures that arise from their divergent paths give an insight into the Muslim world of the nineteenth-century with the sensitivity that Marmaduke Pickthall is renowned for.

Pickthall's second Middle Eastern novel, The House of Islam explores the tension between traditional local customs and new Western practices in a Muslim culture on the cusp of immense change.