A huge and absolutely beautiful book, so sensitively illustrated that you'll spend hours combing the pictures before you even dip into the text. The many essays detail out the rise of Islam and its accompanying culture, and it's the first general survey I've seen to cover sub-Saharan Africa as well as Eurasia, the Far East, and the Indian sub-continent. As good as the text is, though--and as fun---it's those pictures that make this book superb. From lone minnerets on the Xinjiang plains to the gorgeous mud-brick mosques of Djenné, the architectural dictates of Islam have produced some of the most striking and functional buildings our species has ever come up with. It gives me a great sense of communion with the Moslem world, whatever our ideological differences. The pictures in this Oxford History are sensitive and at times poignant...a close-up of a gorgeous tiled pillar, with the tile flaking off with age, revealing superb brickwork underneath comes to mind. Those who like me know little of the Moslem world will appreciate the very readable text, with its slightly shaming details (the Moslems came up with the idea of a Hospital/dispensary as an adjunct to the mosque.....and their brilliant textiles were carried off by returning crusaders who had little appreciation for how difficult they were to make!)
As a scholarly text, "The Oxford History of Islam" may indeed have some holes---I wouldn't know. But as an introduction to the addictive
