Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History

By Emdad Rahman

Award winning travel writer and cultural historian Tharik Hussain unveils a groundbreaking new work, Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a Fourteen Hundred Year History, set for release on 20 November 2025.

Hailed by acclaimed historian William Dalrymple as “a book I’ve been longing for someone to write,” Hussain’s latest work challenges conventional narratives about Europe’s cultural foundations. In this ambitious exploration, he traces the overlooked and often erased presence of Muslims in Europe, beginning with the arrival of the first communities in Cyprus in 647 AD.

The journey takes readers across the Mediterranean and the Iberian Peninsula – through Sicily, Malta, Portugal, and Spain; uncovering forgotten legacies of Islamic scholarship, architecture, and spirituality. Hussain revisits figures such as Abbas Ibn Firnas, an early aviation pioneer, and Ibn Rushd (Averroes), whose philosophy influenced the European Renaissance.

The book also highlights the extraordinary cultural cross fertilisation that once flourished, giving rise to movements like Mudejar art and Europe’s Christian Renaissance.

In one striking moment, Hussain becomes the first Muslim in over nine centuries to pray inside the ruins of a Sicilian mosque, an act that symbolises both remembrance and reclamation of a neglected spiritual heritage. His narrative illuminates how Muslim communities were not outsiders, but active participants in shaping Europe’s religious, scientific, and cultural landscape – protecting minorities, fostering a Jewish Golden Age, and inspiring generations of thinkers.

At its heart, Muslim Europe confronts what Hussain identifies as Europe’s “anti-Muslim DNA,” rooted in medieval crusading myths and reinforced by nation building legends such as Spain’s patron saint Matamoros, the ‘Muslim Killer.’ By exposing these inherited narratives, Hussain offers readers a profound re evaluation of Europe’s identity, one that moves beyond the narrow construct of a “Judaeo-Christian” civilisation.

Described by travel writer Colin Thubron as a work that “uncovers a world of which few are fully aware,” Muslim Europe is poised to spark dialogue and reshape perceptions of Europe’s cultural past.

Publication Date: 20 November 2025
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