This absorbing account of the political and social reformations that transformed the lands of Islam during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries offers a game-changing assessment of the Middle East. Beginning his account in 1798, de Bellaigue demonstrates how the Middle East has long welcomed modern ideals and practices, including the adoption of modern medicine, the emergence of women from seclusion, and the development of democracy. With trenchant political and historical insight, de Bellaigue further shows how the violence of an infinitesimally small minority is in fact the tragic blowback from that modernization. This revolutionary argument, which completely refutes the misconception that Muslims live in a benighted state of backwardness, reveals the folly of Westerners demanding modernity from their Islamic neighbors.
"A highly original and informative survey of the clashes between Islam and modernity in Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran in the last two hundred years. Brilliant!"
Orhan Pamuk, author of My Name Is Red
"That there has been an Islamic Enlightenment at all will come as news to many. De Bellaigue's account of the 'very broad church' of Islam in the modern world is splendid and timely."
Anthony Gottlieb, author of The Dream of Enlightenment
"Christopher de Bellaigue has long been one of our most resourceful and stimulating interpreters of realities veiled by fear and prejudice. In The Islamic Enlightenment, he cuts through the complacent opposition of Islam-versus-modernity to reveal a fascinating world: one in which complex human beings constantly change, improvise, and adjust under the pressures of history. It is the best sort of b
