Historical Atlas Of Islam, by Malise Ruthven with Azim Nanaji

While some aspects of this atlas may seem outdated, given that it was written in 2004 and misses a great deal of Muslim terrorism in the last 20 years, as well as the Arab Spring and its aftereffects, overall this is a remarkably well-informed historical atlas that should serve its goal of improving the knowledge of Islam among those who read it in the West. If the organization of this book seems a bit haphazard when viewed as a whole, there is a general chronological, topical, and regional approach to this book that gives it some structure, even though it mostly involves a map being surrounded by a few pages of text that explains it and provides some historical insights. The authors of this work have a wide degree of knowledge about Islam, and not only in the obvious places like the Middle East, which as might be expected receive a lot of attention. The authors are also knowledgeable and interested in the spread of Islam in West Africa and Southeast and East Asia, and even about such matters as the logistics of the hajj and the tensions that exist over such matters as praying at the shrines of imams and other saints, which is frowned upon by fundamentalists but practiced widely by Shias and others. The book even manages to explore some aspects of Muslim life that are not well recognized but which have had a huge effect on the world.

This book is about 200 pages long or so, and it is divided into a large amount of topics with associated maps, photographs, and artwork. The book begins with an introduction that explains the occasion for this book being written in the aftermath of 9/11 when it was thought necessary to acquaint Western audiences with a nuanced and detailed look at the historical geography of Islam. The authors begin with maps that discuss the geophysical map of the Muslim world and also look at Muslim languages and ethnic groups ranging from Senegal to Indonesia. This is followed by a series of maps that look at the first few centuries of the age of Islam, beginning with late antiquity before Islam, the early expansion of Islam, the division of Muslims into Sunni, Shia, and Kharjite sects, the Abbasid Caliphate and various successor states, the Seljuks, the Fatimids, trade routes, crusader kingdoms, Sufi orders, Ayyubids and Mamluks as well as the Mongol Invasion. After this the maps and essays take a more regional approach, looking at Spain, Sub-Saharan Africa, the Indian Ocean region, the Ottomans, Iran, Central Asia, India, Russia, Southeast Asia, Western empires, reform movements, colonialism, the Balkans and Mediterranean, and China. The book not only looks at political geography but also contains maps that deal with expanding cities, oil and water, prominent Muslim travelers, Muslims in Western Europe and North America, mosques, Islamic arts and major archaealogical sites, as well as terrorism, cinema, internet use, and reform movements starting in the 19th century up to the time the book was published.

As a reader of this book who has studied Islam considerably both personally and academically, there was a lot about this book I appreciated. The authors were deeply interested, as I am, in the problem of asabiya (social cohesion) and why it is found in tribes but not in town dwellers, which the authors (presciently, I think) argue is because of a lack of development of ideas of corporate personhood that allowed cohesion to exist within corporate institutions in the West that made it possible for cities and towns to have the same sort of unity as clans and tribes, which is lacking in the Dar al-Islam at present as well as throughout history, leading to predictable but lamentable cycles of rule that are disrupted by fierce nomads who bring a great deal of destruction before establishing a new political order and then being supplanted in turn when they have become decadent and complacent. The authors honestly address the long-term importance of the Muslim slave trade to the life of Islamic societies, something that has been nearly entirely neglected by contemporary Western scholarship which focuses only on the Atlantic slave trade. The authors also bravely address terrorism, which has threatened the relationship between Muslims and the people and governments of the West, and also point with hope to the possibility that Sufism offers a chance for Islamist political parties to preserve social peace where many very different conceptions of Islam exist within Muslim societies. Whether or not you agree with the authors’ conclusions, they certainly allow for a great deal of insights to be learned about the Arab, Persian, Turkish, and related civilizations that have ruled a great mass of humanity under the banner of Islam.