The Hidden History of Muslims in Europe:Tharik Hussain (Book Talk: Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History): Kianistan-Oct 1, 2026
YouTube Video:
https://youtu.be/qPE3t2x2cVY?si=61ASjbp4dJdbAvIq
In this episode of the Kianistan Podcast, host Tafhim Kiani is joined by author and journalist Tharik Hussain to explore the history of Muslims in Europe, from the arrival of Islam to the present day. They discuss Muslim communities in Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, the Volga region, Poland and Lithuania, as well as the influence of Muslims on European food, culture, science, architecture and law. The conversation also examines how this history has been remembered and forgotten, including the story of the Moriscos and the perception of Muslims as a recent arrival in Europe. Tharik also discusses Muslims in Europe today, demographic change, populist and far-right politics, and the future of Muslim communities across Europe. WHAT YOU'LL DISCOVER IN THIS EPISODE • The arrival of Islam in Europe • Muslim Spain, Sicily & the Balkans • Muslims in Eastern Europe • Muslim influence on food & culture • Science, art, architecture & law • Córdoba, the Mezquita & Alhambra • The forgotten history of European Muslims • The Moriscos and their legacy • Muslims in Europe today • The future of Muslim EuropeAmazon:Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History:Tharik Hussain
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.
Review:
Tharik Hussain’s travels around the Mediterranean revealed how Islamic culture helped civilise the West . . . Fascinating . . . This is no dry archaeological or architectural study. Much of the human interest here comes from Hussain’s meetings with actual Muslims, both residents and visitors . . . while English doctors prescribed crushed snails and smouldering goat’s hair, learned physicians in Muslim Cordoba were performing successful caesareans and cataract operations — Noel Malcolm, The Telegraph
There is something of Naipaul’s vivid sense of human realities . . . particularly through Hussain’s many many pen portraits of actual European Muslims living their Islam . . . fascinating . . . he hopes to provide a positive charter in in the past for Muslim-Christian relations in the present — Nile Green, Times Literary Supplement
Offers a fresh, bracing perspective on European history . . . Hussain’s mission to restore Islamic heritage to the wider story of Europe’s history is admirable, as are his efforts to foster a “place identity”, a sense of belonging in Europe for European Muslims in general and his children in particular — Justin Marozzi, The Times
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 — William Dalrymple
Fascinating . . . complicates our notion of “Europe” as a closed Judeo-Christian space, reminding us that Muslims have since the early days of Islam been an integral, important part of the continent — Daniel Motadel, New Statesman
Uncovers a world of which few are fully aware — Colin Thubron
A perspective-shattering work showing that, far from being fatal to Western culture, Islam has been integral to the development of Europe for more than 1,400 years . . . Muslim Europe reads as both a revisionist work of history and a voyage of discovery — Caroline Sanderson
Tharik Hussain is the essential second eye we need to get the history of Europe into focus, a brilliantly informed and also charming guide to the often hidden place of Islam in our shared past. He takes us to unfamiliar times and unfamiliar places – some glittering, some domestic – and expertly shows how they shaped us — Michael Pye, author of THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
A vital, eye-opening journey into a Europe we were never taught about. A truly extraordinary work of rediscovery that pulls back the veil on a millennium of forgotten history and shows us that Europe has always been far more diverse, interconnected and culturally rich than we’ve been led to believe. With the curiosity of a traveller and the rigour of a historian, Tharik uncovers forgotten stories that challenge everything we think we know about the continent’s past. An important and necessary book for these times — Levison Wood, author of WALKING THE NILE
Tharik Hussain is just the kind of travelling companion we need in polarised times like these: curious, empathetic, erudite. An absolutely fascinating book, expertly threading past and present with a revelatory light — Sophy Roberts, author THE LOST PIANOS OF SIBERIA
About the Author:
Tharik Hussain is an award-winning author and journalist specialising in global Muslim heritage and culture. He has written for newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Telegraph, magazines such as National Geographic Traveler, and broadcast media such as Al Jazeera and the BBC. For the latter, he produced award-winning radio program America’s Mosques. Tharik has written or contributed to travel books on areas including the Middle East, Southeast Asia and Europe, and his book on Islam in the Western Balkans, Minarets in the Mountains, was longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, shortlisted for the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, and won the Adele Evans Award.
posted by NFIE @ 12:02 AM
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