THE SILK ROAD AND BEYOND

We are told in the introduction to this volume that it concerns ‘an effort to capture history, literature, mobility, crafts, architectural traditions and cultural vistas by focusing on diverse Muslim individuals, communities, cities and their edifices.’ There is a tripartite division in which Part II, entitled ‘Traversing the Silk Road’, stretching over nearly 250 pages, bears the major burden of this effort. However, the reader is initiated in Part I, entitled ‘Memoir’, into a local history of the author’s home town Tamman, 18 km west of Islamabad, and personal reminiscences about certain of its notables some of whom are or were his relatives. The subtitle is an essential indicator of the book’s content. Professor Malik teaches Modern History at Bath Spa University and held the Qaid–i-Azam Chair at St Anthony’s College, Oxford. We see how his diverse personal network of academic colleagues and friends extends across the globe, paralleled by a scopic view that travels through geographical space and historical time mediated by a deeply literate Muslim historian.