The Great Caliphs

By Miri Rubin | Published in Book Reviews Volume: 60 Issue: 3

Miri Rubin reviews the runner-up in the 2009 Longman-History Today Book of the Year Award.

I am delighted that we are able to draw attention to Amira K. Bennison’s wonderful book by naming it a runner-up in the 2009 Longman-History Today Prize. This book is lucidly written, based on a wide and diverse range of sources and offers a compelling yet nuanced understanding of the civilisation of the Abbasid empire. Here is a new integrated history of Islam, attuned to its rulers and its subjects, to religion and economy, to laws and conventions alongside the messy reality of life.

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