Selected articles
Michael Haag (1943-2020)
We would all agree, that one of the most acute pleasures of the traveller with time on his hands is reading the right book in the right place – discovering stories in the landscape in which they were written
John Freely (1926-2017)
John was expelled from his Brooklyn high school (scoring 0% in all subjects except for the humanities in which he scored 100%) and seemed destined to become cannon fodder.
Juliet Crawley - Mrs Dominic Vergos - Mrs Rory Peck
my most enduring memory of her is right at the end of her life, supremely elegant in tight trousers and surrounded by male admirers, horses, books, projects and her two beloved children. She was back on some sort of vegan-like diet, specified by a guru, but otherwise on conversational full throttle
Bookblogger interviews Barnaby Rogerson
We look for books that have been written with inner conviction and truth about the world. We want them to observant of others, capable of summing up a spirit of place and catching the moment on the wing.
Francis Yeats-Brown (1886-1944)
What undoubtedly gave him the greatest pleasure however was being allowed to talk to Gandhi on a long, dawn walk through the deserted streets of London.
Geoffrey Gorer (1905-1981)
… one of the most searing criticisms of the bleak reality of French colonialism to have ever been published.
Lewen Weldon (1875-1958)
… on his own initiative, Lewen had collected together a dossier on all the fresh-water wells in the deserts of Egypt. Discrete observation of these wells would enable the British to track any foreign intelligence service trying to operate within Egypt.
Book review: “Madder Red: A history of luxury and trade” by Robert Chenciner
He has a historian's eye for continuity, a chemist's interest in the telling detail, a merchant-like enthusiasm for the roller-coaster laws of supply and demand combined with a salesman’s appreciation of a winning pitch.
Bob Chenciner (1945-2021)
Bob always looked healthy and happy, like some vision of a well-fed monk from England’s golden past.
Bookblast interviews Barnaby Rogerson & Rose Baring, worker-directors of Eland Publishing
We look for books that have been written with inner conviction and truth about the world. We want them to observant of others, capable of summing up a spirit of place and catching the moment on the wing.
“Lifting the Seven Veils - Writing about Islam” - talk given at the British Library during “Sacred” exhibition, 2007
Those who cannot understand the recited verses of Arabic will always be in an outer circle, unable to approach anywhere near to the true understanding and power of the Koran.
Writer's Talk: Writing about Islam
I have got used to spotting that eyebrow flicker of incredulity when I meet Muslim writers and they hear that I have written a biography of the Prophet Muhammad
For the journey is to him - We Have Our Words and You Have Yours
The most that can be expected of any dialogue between Islam and Christianity is an awareness of the different role models for holiness and the different pathways upon which God can be approached.
Looking for a hero for all mankind
I have striven to talk and write about the Prophet as a heroic figure for all mankind to cherish - not just for those who define themselves as Muslims.
Wraps up our world in ribbons of faith
The public call to prayer that echoes out from the minarets of all the great mosques of Islam is like a circular beacon that wraps up our world in ribbons of faith.
Osama’s T-shirt and the Prophet’s Mantle
In 1998 Osama spun completely out of control. He went ‘global’, calling for a pan-Islamic International Front and arranged for forty Taliban ‘scholars’ to back a fatwa sanctioning the killing of Americans and Jews.
Exhibition review: “Hajj journey to the heart of Islam” at the British Museum, 2012
They have assembled a wonderful medley of relics from the past: be it a souvenir flask with which a pilgrim would carry the holy water of the Zemzem spring back home or a gloriously ornate medieval Haj certificate (all counter-signed, witnessed and sealed to prove that the pilgrim had indeed performed the correct rituals).
Portraits of the Prophet Muhammad
When we try to look at early Muslim two-dimensional art on paper, papyrus and parchment we face a historic blank.
To hang or not to hang - On portraits of the Prophet Muhammad in museum collections
His crime was to have shown a beautiful book illustration of the Prophet, veiled in a halo of light, ascending to the heavens.
Dreaming of the Caliphate
I switched back to reality - to watch Japanese televisions, Korean freezers and Chinese dishwashers being loaded onto American trucks by units of the Iraq army driving through the streets of Kuwait in European-made armoured cars.