Modern Islam is different, and it’s constantly evolving.

This is the story of how Islam has been continuously updated since the nineteenth century to meet the challenges of the modern day. For Fitzroy Morrissey, historian and expert on the Islamic world, Muslim thinkers and believers are central to this transformation.

In this rigorous and engaging account, Morrissey examines how these thinkers and believers have reinterpreted the Muslim faith in their approaches to gender, politics and history; the modern history of Sunni-Shi‘i and Muslim-non-Muslim relations; and contemporary efforts to establish moderate and progressive forms of Islam in response to the rise of Salafi-jihadism. He shows how over the past few centuries, the insights of contemporary Muslim thinkers have developed – and in some cases transformed – the meaning of the faith.

Authoritative and surprising, Thinkers and Believers is an essential read from a leading author in this field.

Fitzroy Morrissey is a historian of the Islamic world and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. He speaks Arabic and Persian and has a DPhil in Oriental Studies from Oxford, where he currently teaches on the Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and Theology courses. He works on the intellectual history of the Muslim world, focusing on Sufism, Islamic philosophy, Muslim views of other religions and modern Islamic thought.