The Caliphate
  • Published: 7 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141981413
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

The Caliphate

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What is a caliphate? Who can be caliph? And how are contemporary ideologues such as ISIS reviving - and abusing - the term today?

In the first modern account of a subject of critical importance today, acclaimed historian Hugh Kennedy answers these questions by chronicling the rich history of the caliphate, from the death of Muhammad to the present. At its height, the caliphate stretched from Spain to China and was the most powerful political entity in western Eurasia. In an era when Paris and London boasted a few thousand inhabitants, Baghdad and Cairo were sophisticated centres of trade and culture, and the Ummayad and Abbasid caliphates were distinguished by extraordinary advances in science, medicine and architecture. By ending with the recent re-emergence of caliphal ideology within fundamentalist Islam, The Caliphate underscores why it is crucial that we understand this form of Islamic government before groups such as ISIS distort its practice completely.
  • Published: 7 July 2016
  • ISBN: 9780141981413
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 400
Categories:

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Praise for The Caliphate

A lucid and learned account of one of the most important institutions in world history - and who better to deliver it than one of our most gifted and accessible historians

Shawkat Toorawa, Professor of Arabic, Yale University

Only Hugh Kennedy has the expertise, the wide-ranging mastery of the sources, the general deep understanding of Islamic culture, and the literary style to construct a persuasive argument that describes the intellectual vitality of classical Abbasid Baghdad as similar to that of our modern-day Paris or London

George Saliba, Professor of Arabic and Islamic Science, Columbia University

Enlisting significant Arab-language scholarship, Kennedy provides a carefully calibrated, timely chronicle for nonacademic readers

Kirkus Reviews

A remarkable narrative history... A lively and compelling study

William Dalrymple, The Times (praise for 'Court of the Caliphs')

Masterly and magical

Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daily Telegraph (praise for 'Court of the Caliphs')

History at its most vivid and enthralling . . . a truly magnificent achievement

New Statesman (Praise for 'The Great Arab Conquests')

[Kennedy] traces the history of this important, much-misunderstood concept from the death of the Prophet Muhammad in AD 632 to the present ... [The Caliphate] wears its profound erudition lightly

Jason Burke, Literary Review

An engaging portrait of a fascinating, multifaceted history

Times Literary Supplement

[An] engrossing and entertaining introduction ... Kennedy clearly shows the continuing power of this idea to incite controversy

Publishers Weekly