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No sectarian division has had a more momentous impact than that between the two dominant branches of Islam. Widely considered the world's leading expert on the subject, Toby Matthiesen offers the full story of the Sunni-Shia split, delving down to its roots in the early days of Islam and following it to the present day and its effect on current events not just in the Middle East but globally.
List of contents
- Prologue: From Karbala to Damascus
- PART I THE FORMATION OF SUNNISM AND SHIISM, 632-1500
- Chapter 1 After the Prophet
- Chapter 2 Sunni Reassertion and the Crusades
- Chapter 3 Polemics and Confessional Ambiguity
- PART II THE SHAPING OF MUSLIM EMPIRES, 1500-1800
- Chapter 4 The Age of Confessionalisation
- Chapter 5 Muslim Dynasties on the Indian Subcontinent
- Chapter 6 Reform and Reinvention in the Eighteenth Century
- PART III EMPIRE AND THE STATE, 1800-1979
- Chapter 7 British India and Orientalism
- Chapter 8 Ottoman Reorganisation and European Intervention
- Chapter 9 The Mandates
- Chapter 10 The Muslim Response
- PART IV REVOLUTION AND RIVALRY, 1979-
- Chapter 11 The Religion of Martyrdom
- Chapter 12 Export and Containment of Revolution
- Chapter 13 Regime Change
- Chapter 14 The Arab Uprisings
- Conclusion: Every Place is Karbala
- ENDNOTES
- BIBLIOGRAPHY
- INDEX
About the author
Toby Matthiesen, Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies, University of Bristol.
Toby Matthiesen is Senior Lecturer in Global Religious Studies at the University of Bristol. He is the author of several award-winning books and has previously held fellowships at the Universities of Oxford, Ca' Foscari of Venice, Stanford, Cambridge, and the LSE.
