What's a good book about the history of Islam? Also post

>>8492194
Egger's "A History of the Muslim World" is a good undergrad primer
The Venture of Islam by Hodgson and Lapidus' "A History of Islamic Societies" are for the serious student
The Great Arab Conquests by Kennedy covers the great Jihads
The Truth About Muhammad by Robert Spencer is a highly (virulently) critical hit piece on Muhammed, but very well researched.

>>8492235
how many of these are biased though? I'm just looking for an objective telling of middle eastern history. Just a bit weary of reading anything written by westerners

>>8492244
You will never find an objective history book. Ever. If you think you can you need to go back to historiography 101. Also, Muslims are notorious for whitewashing their history. If you want a good fiction book in this regard, try Season of Migration to the North by Salih. There is nothing wrong with any of the books I listed except for Spencer, which I put in as a spin from the detached academic work of the previous authors.

>>8492244
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Muslim_historians#The_historians_of_the_modern_period

>dat modern period

The middle east is a fuckpot

>>8492244
Read Bukhari and books by the 4 Imams so you have an introduction to Muslim thought before reading any biased books because all Islam related books are biased.

>>8492675
>all books are biased

ftfy

Jesus Christ, one would think that /lit/ would understand that bias is pervasive in any written work, and its only by serious scholarly work that you can come to some sort of vetted truth regarding the past, that may be overturned at any time.

I recommend:
The Study Qur'an
Cambridge Companion to the Qur'an

>>8492969
That's true, thanks for correcting me.

>>8492244
>Just a bit weary of reading anything written by westerners
Modern muslims arent fans of doing things themselves, they hire westerners to build anything remotely challenging

>>8493031
Not to mention that the state of Islamic historical scholarship is shaped by either Iranian or Saudi/Emirate funding.

>>8492244
>He's an objectivist
Fuck yourself, value judgments are inherent in historical writing

>>8492194
Political Islam: A Marxist Analysis is an interesting read! Its a two-part essay

>>8492985
Study Qur'an is really nice, and probably the best interpretation of the book in english