Christopher de Bellaigue has worked as a journalist in south Asia and the Middle East, writing for the Economist, the Guardian, and the New York Review of Books. He is the award-winning author of four books, has made several BBC television and radio documentaries, and has been a visiting fellow at the universities of Harvard and Oxford. He lives in London.
"Elegantly written…’The Islamic Enlightenment’ introduces us to a
fascinating gallery of individuals who would grapple with reform
and modernization in theory and practice…In tracking the sinews of
enlightenment through the last two centuries of Islamic thinking,
this brilliant and lively history deserves nothing but praise."
*New York Times Book Review*
"Excellent…Mr. de Bellaigue, the finest Orientalist of his
generation, does the world a great service by charting the
attainments of the region’s long 19th century….Focusing on Iran,
Turkey and Egypt, ‘the three intellectual and political centres of
the Middle East,’ Mr. de Bellaigue tells a story that is at once
new, fascinating and extraordinarily important."
*Bartle Bull - Wall Street Journal*
"A stylishly written, surprisingly moving chronicle of intellectual
and political flourishing in Egypt, Turkey, and Iran — ‘the brain
of Islam’ — in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."
*Harper's*
"Deeply researched . . . . Beginning with Napoleon’s invasion of
Egypt in 1798 and ending with the late 20th century, De Bellaigue
shows how the cultural struggles between modernity and tradition
unfolded in Istanbul, Cairo, and Tehran. . . .De Bellaigue is a
knowledgeable guide through huge sweeps of cultural history"
*Nick Romeo - Christian Science Monitor*
"The book reads at times like a thriller—it is a tale of reform and
reaction, innovation and betrayal, a struggle, as the author would
put it, between faith and reason. . . . With such divisive views
elevated to state policy, a book that examines the Islamic world’s
liberalization process—at least until the French and the English
carved up the Middle East after 1918—is welcome."
*Francis Ghilès - Arab Weekly*
"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*
"An eye-opening, well-written and very timely book, which can help
us understand better the complex relationship between the Muslim
world and modernity. While both Islamic extremists and Western
bigots find it convenient to stress the incompatibility of Islam
and modernity, Christopher de Bellaigue shows that Islam is
whatever Muslims make of it, and that at least some Muslims have
made of it something very modern."
*Yuval Harari, author of Homo Deus*
"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 book for our disordered days: timely, urgent, and
illuminating."
*Pankaj Mishra, author of From the Ruins of Empire*
"A brilliantly learned and entertaining study of a topic that is of
far more than merely antiquarian interest: the encounter between
the Islamic world and the post-Enlightenment West."
*Tom Holland, author of In the Shadow of the Sword*
"In this expansive historical account and commentary, de Bellaigue
recounts Islam's ''painful encounter with modernity'' through the
history of Turkey, Egypt, and Iran. . . . This is a text that
demands attention for its splendid prose, command of an entire
treasury of history, and ability to undermine the misplaced
patronization of Middle Eastern Muslim nations over the last 300
years."
*Publisher's Weekly*
"Timely, thoughtful, and provocative."
*Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads*
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