In Islamic Empire Gabriel Martinez-Gros alerts us to the oft quoted idea — all histories of the past are histories of the present. Our present-day politics and philosophy is what constructs our idea of the past. In writing the history of the Islamic Empire, especially in the period of the first four to five centuries since the founding of Islam and the period when Islam's empire had expanded to the western borders of Spain, Gabriel Martinez-Gros alerts us to the historiography of writing about the Islamic Empire.
He discusses
how the west wrote the history of Islam,
Islam and the West: reverse histories, religion against philosophy: Arabs against Persians,
the Islamic revival, and an Islamic history of Islam.
Islamic Empire opens with this fascinating historiography centering around Islam. The author takes us through a journey of the history of Islam and the Islamic Empire. This is a lucid and intellectually vibrant account of the first five centuries of the history of Islam since the founding of Islam.