On Sale: Jan 20, 2026
Page Count: 608 pages
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN-13: 9781541600140

$40.00

$51.00 CAD

Format

Format:

Buy from Other Retailers:

A sweeping global history of Islam, tracing the 1,400-year evolution of a diverse community of faith and its place in the modern world

“Anyone who wants to understand not just the past of Islam but its present and future should read Worlds of Islam.”—Reza Aslan, author of No god but God

From its birth in seventh-century Arabia, Islam has been a faith on the move. Over the span of a thousand years, armies, missionaries, and merchants carried it to the edges of Europe, the coasts of Southeast Asia, and the remote interior of China. By the nineteenth century, Islam encompassed a world of great diversity, from Muslim-ruled empires to new nations where Muslims lived out their faith among many others. As empires fell and new superpowers rose, Muslims proved to be as adaptable and dynamic as modernity itself.

In Worlds of Islam, historian James McDougall explores Islam’s origins and transformations as Muslims adapted to changing times and conditions, from Late Antiquity to the digital age. In the twentieth century, while monarchs in the Gulf asserted dynastic privilege and fundamentalists in Egypt and Pakistan preached social morality, revolutionaries from Algeria to Indonesia fought for national self-determination, and activists in North America and Europe campaigned for civil liberties and social justice.

Sweeping and authoritative, Worlds of Islam narrates the epic story of how Muslims emerged as a community, built empires, traversed the globe, came to number in the billions, and became modern.

Genre:

“A truly global work of history ... [Worlds of Islam] makes a case for a historicist approach to Islam as a religion [and] manages to show the scale of Islamic interactions with non-Muslims over the course of fourteen centuries without losing sight of what Islam meant to Muslims. Rather than denial or avoidance, [McDougall] reaches for the historian’s tools of contextualization and comparison ... his approach is constantly analytical, questioning what facts signify.”
The Times Literary Supplement
“This book offers an erudite, elegantly written guide to the mad world we live in and to the fascinating worlds of Islam.”
Arab Weekly
“Brilliant, indispensable, and a rare book of balanced scholarship.”
Simon Sebag Montefiore, on X.com
“A sweeping reimagining of how we think about Muslim history. With clarity and elegance, James McDougall dismantles the tired myth of a single, monolithic ‘Muslim world’ and reveals a dazzlingly diverse mosaic of Muslim lives, cultures, and societies. This is not the story of Islam as an isolated civilization but as a dynamic, evolving force that has shaped and been shaped by every corner of the world for nearly a millennium and a half. Anyone who wants to understand not just the past of Islam but its present and future should read Worlds of Islam.”
Reza Aslan, author of No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam
“A brilliant and captivating work. Written with verve and balance, and profound scholarship, Worlds of Islam allows Western readers to appreciate Islamic history from the perspective of Muslim communities from the rise of Islam to the present day. There is simply no better book on Islam in history.”

Eugene Rogan, author of The Arabs
“A riveting read. Here, we see Islam, not as some fixed constellation of doctrines, rituals, and ideas, but as a powerful, ever-evolving current in the river of history. McDougall never loses sight of the big picture even as he brings us close enough to see Islam taking root in sub-Saharan Africa, central Asia, the Indian sub-continent, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, China, and even among African Americans in the United States—these are idiosyncratically individual stories, yet they’re also all parts of one big story. Worlds of Islam achieves sweep without compromising depth and depth without compromising sweep—a remarkable feat.”
Tamim Ansary, author of Destiny Disrupted

James McDougall

About the Author

James McDougall has taught history at Princeton; the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London; and Oxford, where he is a Fellow of Trinity College. The author of two previous books, his writing has appeared in The Guardian, Foreign Affairs, and The New Statesman. He lives in Oxford, UK.

Learn more about this author

×

Contributors

Formats and Prices

Price