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The House of Islam explores the contrasting lifestyles of two Palestinian brothers. Milhem, an ambitious Ottoman official, borrows money from his brother Shems-ud-din, a merchant and holy man, to purchase a government post in Jerusalem - a bustling, sophisticated city. When Shems-ud-din's beloved daughter falls ill, he is forced to leave his tranquil dwelling to seek the aid of a Frankish doctor in Jerusalem. The ensuing adventures that arise from their divergent paths give an insight into the Muslim world of the nineteenth-century with the sensitivity that Marmaduke Pickthall is renowned for.
Pickthall's second Middle Eastern novel, The House of Islam explores the tension between traditional local customs and new Western practices in a Muslim culture on the cusp of immense change.
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Described by E. M. Forster as "the only contemporary English novelist who understands the Nearer East," Marmaduke Pickthall's adult life defied his upbringing. The son of an English country parson, as a young man he travelled through Syria and Palestine, and on his return to England penned Saïd the Fisherman, a novel praised by D. H. Lawrence and H. G. Wells. His unconventional role in the First World War and his years in India, where he ultimately translated Islam's holiest text, meant he was a forgotten figure in the land of his birth.
