‘A magnificent repository of love and learning … approaching its subject with such generosity and proportion that one feels the whole of Islamic art and learning has to be encapsulated within its covers’ – The Times

Scholarly and densely informative, beautifully and generously illustrated, a valuable and accessible work of general reference – The Financial Times

Lavishly illustrated with examples drawn from the extraordinarily rich and varied canon of of Islamic art, this authoritative and wide-ranging volume explores every aspect of Islam – its social life, trade, mysticism, literature, music, science and warfare – at a time when Western interest in the Islamic world is growing as never before.