Makers of Islamic Civilisation – serie

Here is a highly informative yet accessibly-written introduction to the life and works of the writer and political thinker Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938), who as President of the Muslim League played a vital role in the birth of Pakistan, and is revered today as its spiritual founder. In discussing Iqbal's thought, and analysing his poetry and prose at some length, Mir suggests that Iqbal represents a paragon for modern Muslims, caught as they are between tradition and modernity. Iqbal's attempt to integrate Islamic and Western elements in his intellectual, artistic and political lives makes him a figure that Muslims may respect and emulate, since he declared his passionate loyalty to the religion of Islam while at the same time differentiating between the eternal, or essential, and the historical, or incidental, in the Islamic tradition.

An Arab born in Bukhara, in present-day Uzbekistan, Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810-869) was one of the most famous and influential Islamic scholars of his time. He is renowned for his collection of Hadith texts (the Hadith being the traditional sayings of the Prophet Muhammad), called the Sahih, which is regarded by many Sunni Muslims as the most reliable commentary on the Qur'an that exists. Ahmad Mujtaba Hasan here discusses Bukhari's colourful life and times as well as his mastery of the textual disciplines of 'fiqh', 'rijal' and 'ilal'. The legacy of Bukhari is shown by Dr Hasan to have great currency, since on more than one occasion this great Islamic scholar was criticised for doctrinal heterodoxy by his contemporaries. Then, as now, the interpretation of religious texts proved to be a controversial matter, and this attractive and lively biography will appeal to all those, and not just in Islamic studies, fascinated by the challenges posed to tradition by textual hermeneutics.

Ibn Battuta was famous in his own lifetime during the 14th Century as the greatest traveller of the age. He traversed the whole Islamic world (from his native Tangier to China), and crossed over its boundaries in Europe and sub-Saharan Africa. He was variously attacked by pirates, shipwrecked, marooned and kidnapped. His observations on political power, and on legal, commercial and cultural practices in the numerous places that he visited. give his Travels an enduring fascination. This narrative of high adventure rivals, or even surpasses, the explorations of Battuta's near contemporary, Marco Polo. Told with humour, irony and pathos, his travelogue is filled with marvels which blend idealism with reality. L P Harvey reviews Ibn Battuta's journeys and discusses the major themes of the Travels. He examines the financing of Ibn Battuta's adventures; how geography and natural history are presented by him; how the Travels engage with issues of race and gender; and the religious milieu through which Ibn Battuta moved.Harvey's account of the traveller reveals the vivid portrait of a man with his fair share of human failings, but who was nonetheless remarkable for his courage, unbounded curiosity, and for the candour and skill with which he reported on the world as he had found it.