Greed and strife simmer in a riven land held together by an ailing king Amid the chaos and misery of the Middle Ages, Sicily proved to be an island in more ways than one. Even after Christians reconquered the island, the citizens retained their Muslim culture. One ruler became a bridge between worlds, speaking Arabic fluently, maintaining a harem, and even taking on the dual titles of King Roger of Sicily and Sultan Rujari of Siqilliya. Aiding Rujari...

A novel of the deep roots of the clash between Islam and the West The savagery of the Reconquest tore apart the world of the Banu Hudayl family. For the doomed Muslims of late-fifteenth-century Spain, the approaching forces of Christendom bring not peace but the sword. Capturing the brutality of a war both military and cultural-and the price paid by the innocent-Tariq Ali opens his Islam Quintet with a harrowing and profound historical fiction.