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Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History
‘Vital, important’ WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
‘Perspective-shattering’ CAROLINE SANDERSON
'Offers a fresh, bracing perspective on European history' THE TIMES
For over 1,400 years, Muslims have been an integral part of Europe’s story, yet their contributions have been pushed to the margins or erased altogether. In Muslim Europe, award-winning author Tharik Hussain restores this forgotten history.
In a revelatory journey across the continent, we tread in the footsteps of the first Muslims who arrived on European soil in 647 AD. We travel through Cyprus, Sicily, Malta, Portugal and Spain, learning about the continent’s great Caliphate culture and Muslim commonwealth, encountering red-haired European Sultans and Arabic-speaking Christian Kings, the Sufi lodges of Cyprus and the palaces of Sicily.
Forgotten Muslim pioneers like Abbas Ibn Firnas gave us flight, Ibn Rushd gifted us modern philosophy and the cross fertilisation of faiths and cultures birthed Europe’s Christian Renaissance. For twelve centuries, Muslim Europe was a sanctuary for the continent’s Jews. Recalling the poignant voices of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut and Abraham Ibn Daoud, Jews flourished under Muslim protection triggering the Jewish Golden Age.
For the first time, Muslim Europe lays bare the cause of our collective Islamic amnesia by mapping Europe’s ‘anti-Muslim DNA’ through medieval Crusade narratives and nation-building myths. But Islam was never a sideshow to Western culture; it was integral to its development for over 1,400 years.
Deep, learned and utterly convincing, this first Muslim Eurocentric history of the continent dismantles the myth of Europe’s Judaeo-Christian cultural foundation, and offers nothing less than a profound shift in our self-understanding.
‘Uncovers a world of which few are fully aware’ COLIN THUBRON
‘Perspective-shattering’ CAROLINE SANDERSON
'Offers a fresh, bracing perspective on European history' THE TIMES
For over 1,400 years, Muslims have been an integral part of Europe’s story, yet their contributions have been pushed to the margins or erased altogether. In Muslim Europe, award-winning author Tharik Hussain restores this forgotten history.
In a revelatory journey across the continent, we tread in the footsteps of the first Muslims who arrived on European soil in 647 AD. We travel through Cyprus, Sicily, Malta, Portugal and Spain, learning about the continent’s great Caliphate culture and Muslim commonwealth, encountering red-haired European Sultans and Arabic-speaking Christian Kings, the Sufi lodges of Cyprus and the palaces of Sicily.
Forgotten Muslim pioneers like Abbas Ibn Firnas gave us flight, Ibn Rushd gifted us modern philosophy and the cross fertilisation of faiths and cultures birthed Europe’s Christian Renaissance. For twelve centuries, Muslim Europe was a sanctuary for the continent’s Jews. Recalling the poignant voices of Hasdai Ibn Shaprut and Abraham Ibn Daoud, Jews flourished under Muslim protection triggering the Jewish Golden Age.
For the first time, Muslim Europe lays bare the cause of our collective Islamic amnesia by mapping Europe’s ‘anti-Muslim DNA’ through medieval Crusade narratives and nation-building myths. But Islam was never a sideshow to Western culture; it was integral to its development for over 1,400 years.
Deep, learned and utterly convincing, this first Muslim Eurocentric history of the continent dismantles the myth of Europe’s Judaeo-Christian cultural foundation, and offers nothing less than a profound shift in our self-understanding.
‘Uncovers a world of which few are fully aware’ COLIN THUBRON
417 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 4, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 30, 2025
Having read his previous book minarets in the mountains I was really looking forward to this and it did not disappoint.
Very well researched I now have a whole new list of places for my bucket list.
Ishbillya
Emirate of Sequilla
Malta.
The book details a history that has been purposefully forgotten and surpressed. You get a sense of this just by looking at the one star review and no comment on Goodreads. For some people anything with the word Muslim or Islam is like a red rag to a bull!
Very well researched I now have a whole new list of places for my bucket list.
Ishbillya
Emirate of Sequilla
Malta.
The book details a history that has been purposefully forgotten and surpressed. You get a sense of this just by looking at the one star review and no comment on Goodreads. For some people anything with the word Muslim or Islam is like a red rag to a bull!
February 14, 2026
In view of the deplorable rise in Islamophobia in Europe and elsewhere, I was glad to find a copy of this book in our local library. One of the recommendations on the back was from the excellent William Dalrymple, himself a master of putting us right on imperialist historical obfuscation:
‘A vital, important and sharply observant new voice … In an age of growing Islamophobia, when ignorant commentators constantly depict Muslims as the Other, as dangerous outsiders, Hussain reminds us of the long history and the complex, mixed syncretic culture of European Islam, and nudges us to remember the massive debt Europe still owes to the Muslim world … A book I’ve been longing for someone to write.'
I have learnt a lot from reading this, but have to confess I found some of the dense detail about Muslim history a bit hard-going at times, though I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case for Muslim readers. It has certainly made me keen to look out for Muslim heritage whenever I travel and to read more on the subject. I wish I had spoken more with my late Anglo-Spanish cousin about her decision to become a Sufi.
I was fascinated to learn more of Arab Muslim medicine, including hospitals in medieval Spain that would put some of today’s to shame, and the stunning work of tenth century Cordoban physician Abu Al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, considered the ‘father’ of surgery.
Considering the horrors of the Palestine Genocide over the last two years, and all of the onslaught by Zionists that preceded it, it is deeply ironic that, as Tharik Hussain writes, ‘ Europe’s Muslims sheltered Europe’s Jews for twelve centuries before the Nazis came along with their Final Solution. In fact, barring the odd despot, there was not one example of an anti-semitic atrocity committed by Europe’s Muslims that was even remotely comparable to those committed by Europe’s historical Christians …
‘… more than half the population (of Israel) have Sephardic roots and therefore largely owe their survival to the protection their ancestors were afforded by the likes of the Umayyads of Cordoba, the Nasrids of Granada, and later, when they were expelled, the Muslims of North Africa and the Ottomans of the Balkans. Even those Israeli Jews from the Eastern half of Europe arguably owed much to the protection afforded them by Muslims in medieval and late-medieval Europe, when much of (Western European) Christendom was committing genocides like the Inquisition, issuing expulsion edicts and carrying out pogroms.’
‘A vital, important and sharply observant new voice … In an age of growing Islamophobia, when ignorant commentators constantly depict Muslims as the Other, as dangerous outsiders, Hussain reminds us of the long history and the complex, mixed syncretic culture of European Islam, and nudges us to remember the massive debt Europe still owes to the Muslim world … A book I’ve been longing for someone to write.'
I have learnt a lot from reading this, but have to confess I found some of the dense detail about Muslim history a bit hard-going at times, though I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case for Muslim readers. It has certainly made me keen to look out for Muslim heritage whenever I travel and to read more on the subject. I wish I had spoken more with my late Anglo-Spanish cousin about her decision to become a Sufi.
I was fascinated to learn more of Arab Muslim medicine, including hospitals in medieval Spain that would put some of today’s to shame, and the stunning work of tenth century Cordoban physician Abu Al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, considered the ‘father’ of surgery.
Considering the horrors of the Palestine Genocide over the last two years, and all of the onslaught by Zionists that preceded it, it is deeply ironic that, as Tharik Hussain writes, ‘ Europe’s Muslims sheltered Europe’s Jews for twelve centuries before the Nazis came along with their Final Solution. In fact, barring the odd despot, there was not one example of an anti-semitic atrocity committed by Europe’s Muslims that was even remotely comparable to those committed by Europe’s historical Christians …
‘… more than half the population (of Israel) have Sephardic roots and therefore largely owe their survival to the protection their ancestors were afforded by the likes of the Umayyads of Cordoba, the Nasrids of Granada, and later, when they were expelled, the Muslims of North Africa and the Ottomans of the Balkans. Even those Israeli Jews from the Eastern half of Europe arguably owed much to the protection afforded them by Muslims in medieval and late-medieval Europe, when much of (Western European) Christendom was committing genocides like the Inquisition, issuing expulsion edicts and carrying out pogroms.’
January 17, 2026
Muslim Europe is a beautifully written blend of travel writing and history that reintroduces Europe through its often-forgotten Muslim past. Moving across Spain, Sicily, Cyprus, and beyond, Tharik Hussain challenges modern assumptions by revealing a Europe once shaped by cultural exchange, spiritual depth, and coexistence.
This is not a dry history book—it reads like a journey. Accessible, reflective, and visually rich, it’s perfect for travelers, history lovers, and anyone curious about identity and belonging in Europe. As a Muslim European, this book felt both grounding and necessary: a reminder that Muslims are not strangers to Europe—this has always been home.
Reading about Barakah Café in Órgiva—evoked a sense of return. It felt like traveling back to Spain for a simple village coffee, recalling café bombón: espresso with condensed milk. These moments demonstrate the book’s unique ability to connect historical reflection with lived, everyday experience.
A joyful, thought-provoking read that connects memory, place, and shared humanity. 📖🌹
This is not a dry history book—it reads like a journey. Accessible, reflective, and visually rich, it’s perfect for travelers, history lovers, and anyone curious about identity and belonging in Europe. As a Muslim European, this book felt both grounding and necessary: a reminder that Muslims are not strangers to Europe—this has always been home.
Reading about Barakah Café in Órgiva—evoked a sense of return. It felt like traveling back to Spain for a simple village coffee, recalling café bombón: espresso with condensed milk. These moments demonstrate the book’s unique ability to connect historical reflection with lived, everyday experience.
A joyful, thought-provoking read that connects memory, place, and shared humanity. 📖🌹
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews