For People Who Devour Books

Book Reviews by
Eric Ormsby

From the March 2021 Issue

Wars of Words

The Rise of the Arabic Book

By Beatrice Gruendler

From the July 2019 Issue

Straw Men in Mufti

Useful Enemies: Islam and the Ottoman Empire in Western Political Thought, 1450–1750

By Noel Malcolm

From the February 2017 Issue

Righteous Reformations

The Islamic Enlightenment: The Modern Struggle between Faith and Reason

By Christopher de Bellaigue

From the August 2016 Issue

A Silk Road of the Mind

Nearer the Heart’s Desire: Poets of the Rubaiyat – A Dual Biography of Omar Khayyam and Edward FitzGerald

By Robert D Richardson

From the May 2016 Issue

Eastern Reflections

Persophilia: Persian Culture on the Global Scene

By Hamid Dabashi

From the December 2014 Issue

Jinn Fizz

Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange: The First English Translation of a Medieval Arab Fantasy Collection

By Malcolm C Lyons (trans) & introduced by Robert Irwin

From the May 2011 Issue

Late Bloom

The Anatomy of Influence: Literature as a Way of Life

By Harold Bloom

From the August 2014 Issue

Studying the Sharia

Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy

By Jonathan A C Brown

From the December 2011 Issue

Stories Told in Bed

Stranger Magic: Charmed States & the Arabian Nights

By Marina Warner

Visions of the Jinn: Illustrators of the Arabian Nights

By Robert Irwin

From the March 2012 Issue

A Meeting with Adonis

From the December 2012 Issue

The Imaged Word

Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam

By Jamal J Elias

From the August 2013 Issue

Found in Translation

The Bible in Arabic: The Scriptures of the ‘People of the Book' in the Language of Islam

By Sidney H Griffith

From the November 2013 Issue

Making a Prophet

The First Muslim: The Story of Muhammad

By Lesley Hazleton