House Divided (eBook)

Sunni, Shia and the Making of the Middle East

Rogerson Barnaby Rogerson (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
Profile Books Ltd (Verlag)
978-1-78283-294-2 (ISBN)

Infos

Recommended on The Rest is Politics and Empire'A masterly engagement with the most delicate and important of subjects - filled with gentle empathy, learning and rare balance' Rory Stewart'Rogerson is an original - eloquent and always fascinating' William Dalrymple'Brilliant' Anita Anand'This is not a book to be ignored' The TimesAt the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his cousin and son-in-law Ali, and the slaughter of Ali's own son Husayn at Kerbala. These events, known to every Muslim, have created a slender faultline in the Middle East. The House Divided follows these narratives from the first Sunni and Shia caliphates, through the medieval caliphates and empires of the Arabs, Persians and Ottomans, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a complex range of identities and rivalries - religious, ethnic and national - have shaped the region, jolted by the seismic shift of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Rogerson's original approach takes the modern chessboard of nation states and looks at each through its particular history of empires and occupiers, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams. The result is a book of wide-ranging empathy, understanding and insights.

Rezensionen

Rogerson is a master storyteller, equally at home sketching the intimacies of the Prophet's household as he is illuminating geopolitical trends across the world of contemporary Islam

Not only an accessible account of Islam's schism, but a compelling introduction to the history of the Middle East

This digestible history of the restless region is a useful alternative to academic tracts ... it has answers to several of the basic questions: the difference between Sunni and Shia, how Turkey and Iran aren't Arab, but are important anyway, and, sometimes, just how much Britain has to answer for in the Middle East ... this is not a book to be ignored

This book is a tour de force. One of the best summary histories of Islam from its beginnings until today I have come across. Informative, engaging, and excitingly written, it is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins and development of a great world religion

Rogerson has a novelist's gift for filling out the characters of his main players

Rogerson is an excellent story-teller

A lucid, vivid and sweeping history of the divisions within Islam and their destructive impact on the contemporary Muslim world. Barnaby Rogerson takes you to the heart of the arguments and battles, revealing some stark truths. This is history as a living entity. A dazzling achievement

A masterly engagement with the most delicate and important of subjects - filled with gentle empathy, learning and rare balance

Entertaining, ambitious and thought-provoking... An ideal book for people who want to understand more about the Middle East

Remarkable - Barnaby Rogerson has succeeded in isolating all the different strands of North African history

Brilliant

Rogerson is an original - eloquent and always fascinating

A balanced, sweeping, hugely ambitious work that delves into the long and tangled roots of the modern Middle East

Rogerson is eccentric and eclectic but always iconoclastic. He is not afraid to explore and elucidate the recondite in a way a more formal academic would not

Impressive ... a highly readable, lovingly researched, romantic and engaging history

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.1.2024
• Zusatzinfo: 2 integrated map illustration2 colour map endpapers
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte
• Themenwelt: Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Islam
• Schlagworte: Ali • battle of karbala • caliph • Gaza • Hadith • Iran • iranain revolution • Islam • Koran • Middle East • middle east history books • Mohamed • Muhammad • Muslim • Palestine • Prophet • Quran • Rory Stewart • sect • Sectarian • Shia • Sunni • sunni-shia schism • the rest is politics • war
• ISBN-10: 1-78283-294-7 / 1782832947
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78283-294-2 / 9781782832942