Kingdoms of Faith

Moorish Spain is probably one of the best known fields of Islamic studies in English speaking lands. The past twenty years have witnessed a huge upsurge of interest and a plethora of new books on the topic. Kingdoms of Faith: A New History of Islamic Spain by American scholar Brian A. Catlos does not really break new ground but successfully collates much contemporary research in one accessible volume. The history of al-Andalus is European history, but also Islamic history and Jewish history. Islam, Christianity, and Judaism do not represent three independent civilizations. They are all inextricably linked elements, or dimensions, of the larger venture we call “the West” – the product of the ancient Neat East and Hebrew, Greek, Persian, and Roman influences that combined in the Mediterranean over the course of the last few thousand years, drawing in peoples and cultures from Africa, Europe, western Asia, and beyond. (pp. 427–428)