All the sultan's men

The victors of Lepanto

Michael Nordberg is a Swedish historian. His most well known book is “Den dynamiska medeltiden”, in which he attempts to rehabilitate the European Middle Ages, usually seen as a long dark age of inquisitions and witch-burnings. In this book, “Profetens folk”, he makes a valiant attempt to do the same with medieval and early modern Islamic civilization.

While the book does give a good overview of its subject-matter and is probably a must-read for that reason, Nordberg comes across as yet another “pro-Islamic” scholar. His pro-Ottoman tendencies are particularly glaring, even including a defense of the blood-tax and slavery in general, plus complaints about European “fear of the Turk” and “Balkan nationalism” (i.e. anti-Ottoman nationalism). No, no, there was nothing to fear, sez the mandarin liberal…

He also cheats when he paints the situation in Fatimid Egypt – the most tolerant Muslim dynasty outside India – as typical of the Muslim world as a whole. Another annoying bug is Nordberg's insistence on misspelling the name Iraq (it's “Irak” in Swedish, nothing else), presumably because he, as a professor, knows best how it should “really” be transliterated to svenska spraket.

But OK, I'm just venting now, LOL. In the end, I will give this work four stars, but with the usual Lepanto caveats…