Sometimes the chat is a little too casual, and he comes across as your uncle trying to prove he’s down with the kids by doing the frug, not the best choice: Telling you how, why, all about it, from the top to the bottom, with many glints of humour to get you through some very harrowing stuff. You’re out for a beer with this guy and you ask the fatal question – what’s up with these Muslims anyhow? What are they all about? Forty hours later, Tamim is still talking. Tamim Ansary writes in a chatty, slangy, motormouth style. Obscure to a Western reader, that is, but I’m going to hazard that Transoxiana, Khorasan, Ctesiphon, and the exact difference between Umayyads, Abbasids, Fatimids and Safavids might tax your regular Muslim on the street too. In this book a lot of obscure places and people go rushing by, like a speeded up film, like a boiling river. This is vast but fast history : you have to hang on to your hat, or whatever you hang on to, which might not be a hat, since the kind of hats which a strong wind might snatch from your head are rarely worn today. Right time, right place, right style, this is 100% recommended.
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