Minarets in the Mountains: A Journey Into Muslim Europe (Bradt Travel Guides (Travel Literature))

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Walter A. Starr, Jr., author of Starr’s Guide to the John Muir Trail and the High Sierra Region, fell to his death while solo-climbing the northwest face of Michael Minaret in 1933. [8] [9]

With a style that mixes travel writing with history and storytelling, Minarets in the Mountains… weaves the past with the present to great effect. The author’s literary companion is the famous Ottoman traveller Evliya Çelebi, who also wrote his own travel diary while visiting the Balkans in the 17th century. Çelebi is a major character in the book. Examples of his travel writing are presented masterfully and contrasted with Hussain’s portrait of the Balkans. PDF / EPUB File Name: Minarets_in_the_Mountains_-_Tharik_Hussain.pdf, Minarets_in_the_Mountains_-_Tharik_Hussain.epub Steve Fossett, an American aviator and adventurer, died in a plane crash near the Minarets in 2007. [10] South Notch, class 2, is the second easiest way across range, located beween Ken and Kehrlein Minarets. The route is obvious from the outlet of Cecile Lake, and leads to the south side of the range with access to Amphitheater Lake and Starr, Kehrlein, Ken, Adams, and Michael Minarets. The south side is easy talus. The north side usually has snow, but the angle is low enough to avoid crampons/axe if the snow is sufficiently soft. Hussain has a contagious curiosity and such enthusiasm for the topic that, when combined with a healthy dose of historical detail, he is able to keep you engaged and entertained throughout. The book also has an unpretentious charm, mixing the facts with casual chats with locals, fellow tourists and family time, for those little moments of laughter and authenticity that really make travelling so special.isn’t the only historical figure whose appearance enriches the book. Mimar Sinan, the Ottoman architect and civil engineer for Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, also features heavily. Described as the “Turkish Michelangelo” Sinan’s legacy spans the Balkans and he is credited with being a figure so important that his genius and fame transcended European hostility against Muslims. T urner Minaret - 11,600ft, class 4 The traverse from Jensen Minaret is class 3. The East Face is 5.8, the East Side is 5.4. Winner of a BGTW Members’ Excellence Award: Travel Narrative Book of the Year – The Adele Evans Award Shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards: Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2021 Minarets in the Mountains recounts a road trip Hussain and his family took in the summer of 2016 through the former Yugoslavia and Albania in search of Europe’s indigenous Muslim communities, their history and heritage. Thomas analyzed the views from the still-extant towers, and found that most of them did not command vistas that extended beyond the valley. Rather, many of the towers seem to have been constructed to conduct surveillance of the valley itself. Thomas speculates that the fortifications might have been built in the wake of the religious riots that swept Firuzkuh toward the end of the Ghurid Dynasty’s reign. It’s possible that even after the Ghurid sultan Ghiyath al-Din quit the remote summer capital for Herat, he wanted to keep an eye on his rebellious subjects in Firuzkuh. A network of fortifications intended to monitor threats inside the capital, rather than approaching foes, might have been a result of his concern. The sultan was perhaps right to be preoccupied with the possibility of internal instability. His successor was assassinated in 1215, an event that led to the collapse of the Ghurid Empire. It had lasted less than 70 years in all.

What made the encounter with these communities so special for Hussain was the fact that they were not the result of post-colonial migration as in western Europe. “They don’t remember a time when they weren’t Muslim,” he says. As he writes in the introduction to his book: “They were Muslims whose identity had been forged in and of Europe. It was an identity entrenched fully in local society. They were as European as they were Muslim.” Tharik has produced award-winning radio for the BBC World Service on America’s earliest mosques and been published by the likes of the BBC, National Geographic Traveller, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and The Sunday Telegraph. He is also a fellow at the Centre for Religion and Heritage at the University of Groningen. 'Minarets and Mountains' is the first English travel book to explore indigenous Muslim Europe, and the first to look at its living 600-year-old culture and heritage through the eyes of a Muslim writer. Criterion (iii): The Minaret of Jam and its associated archaeological remains constitute exceptional testimony to the power and quality of the Ghurid civilization that dominated the region in the 12th and 13th centuries. Hussain asks why he was taught none of this in school in England. The Greek Empire under Alexander the Great had been gone into, as had the Roman Empire. But why did so many in Europe – and not just Europe – shy away from presenting the Ottoman Empire in the rightful way? Were the Ottomans held more guilty of the crime of colonialism than the Greeks and Romans? A magical, eye-opening account of a journey into a Europe that rarely makes the news and is in danger of being erased altogether. Another Europe. A Europe few people believe exists and many wish didn’t. Muslim Europe. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2021. Shortlisted in the Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards 2022: Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year.Hussain’s main, alarming, thesis, is that one ought to visit the Muslim Balkans while one can, as the heritage of the Muslim Balkans is in danger of being eradicated. While cities like Novi Pazar inspired him with their vitality, Hussain draws attention to the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Nineties, underpinning his conviction that the Muslim Balkans is under threat.