The House Divided

Sunni, Shia and the Conflict in the Middle East

By: Barnaby Rogerson

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Hardcover | 4 January 2024

At a Glance

Hardcover
432 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
24.0 x 16.2 x 3.9

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A fresh look at the past, present and future of a conflict that lies at the heart of the Middle East

'Rogerson is an original - eloquent and always fascinating' - William Dalrymple

At the heart of the Middle East, with its regional conflicts and proxy wars, is a 1400-year-old schism between Sunni and Shia. To understand this divide and its modern resonances, we need to revisit its origins, which go back to the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the accidental coup that set aside the claims of his son Ali, and the slaughter of Ali's own son Husayn at Kerbala. These events, known to every Muslim, have created a slender faultline in the Middle East.

The House Divided follows these narratives from the first Sunni and Shia caliphates, through the medieval caliphates and empires of the Arabs, Persians and Ottomans, to the contemporary Middle East. It shows how a complex range of identities and rivalries - religious, ethnic and national - have shaped the region, jolted by the seismic shift of the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Rogerson's original approach takes the modern chessboard of nation states and looks at each through its particular history of empires and occupiers, minorities and resources, sheikhs and imams. The result is a book of wide-ranging empathy, understanding and insights.

About the Author

Barnaby Rogerson has been travelling the Islamic world for the last forty years, first as a young man writing guidebooks, then as a journalist, and finally as a writer of histories. He is publisher of the acclaimed travel list, Eland Books. His books include The Prophet Muhammad: a Biography, The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and The Last Crusaders.

Industry Reviews

'Rogerson is an original - eloquent and always fascinating' - William Dalrymple

Praise for Barnaby Rogerson:

'Rogerson has a novelist's gift for filling out the characters of his main players' - Noel Malcolm

'Rogerson is an excellent story-teller' - Norman Stone

'Remarkable - Barnaby Rogerson has succeeded in isolating all the different strands of North African history' - John Julius Norwich

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