Michael Cook's "A History of the Muslim World" is my favourite book of 2024. Together, we discussed:

- Did Islamic science weaken due to religious authoritarianism?

- Why, in the Middle East and North Africa, were there so few peasant rebellions?

- Theologically, how important was Ghazali?

- What determined the rate at which people converted to Islam?

- Why was there so much religious syncretism and diversity in the Ottoman Empire?

- Why did the Muslim world fall behind economically?

- Did the Ottoman Empire ban the printing press?

- Why is South Asia the only place where Muslims ruled for hundreds of years yet remained a minority?

- When you study the global history of Islam, what is the best indicator of how Muslim they really were?

- Did colonialism trigger an Islamic backlash?

- Why do Muslim countries often have weak state capacity? Timur Kuran blames waqfs. Do you agree?

"A History of the Muslim World": https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691236575/a-history-of-the-muslim-world

On my Substack, you can see my earlier reviews: https://www.ggd.world/p/a-history-of-the-muslim-world-by