Transcription
In this, uh, video, I want to share with you some of those must-read books that I've simply got to read in 2026 because I have so many books that I want to read. The books behind me and elsewhere. I've read a lot of them. Some of them are encyclopedias and reference works and dictionaries not meant to be read cover to cover. Others are, uh, meant to be read cover to cover and I've read them and still others, a growing number unfortunately, of, uh, must reads.
So, in 2026, I've selected, uh, I think about five books that are top of my list and I want to share them with you to share why I think they're such important works and why they promise to really produce, um, an increase in our knowledge and understanding of the world around us.
But before I come to that, I just want to share with you what I'm reading at the moment. I'm reading about five books. I tend to, I, you know, I had a theory a long time ago when I was naive and younger that I would be like a, uh, I would practice monogamy when it comes to my books. So, I was very strictly faithful to the one book that I was reading and I would be very committed to it because I wanted to give my, in my mind, the idea was I wanted to give my undivided attention to the author. I didn't want to kind of be distracted by other temptations and I followed this rule for quite a while. But ultimately, I, I had to practice polygamous reading [laughter] um, because there were so many juicy books, uh, that I just really needed to read. And so I discovered, like a banquet, changed the metaphor, uh, that I could, uh, indulge in a variety of cuisines, uh, simultaneously and I didn't just have to have one type of cuisine, um, for, you know, at, at a time. So, I, I changed that and now I'm usually reading four, five, six books at the same time. I try and have to keep the metaphor going, a, uh, a varied diet. Um, and as you will see, I think that's, I, I've, uh, maintained that aspiration. So, I don't just have fictional books. I don't just have academic books. I don't just have, uh, Quran reading. Quran is always the background in what I do, what I read. But I have a variety of texts which kind of keep me interested, uh, intellectually engaged and, uh, creative and, uh, fascinated. As many will know, uh, I, I have been reading, uh, I have completed reading the, the, uh, the Clear Quran. Uh, I read one page a year religiously, one page a day for a year religiously and I completed that over a month ago. So, and then I stopped reading the, the Quran in that systematic way every day and then, um, about a week ago, I got the taste back again and I want to do something different. So, I have been reading, uh, this marvelous book which I have read before, of course, The Meaning of the Holy Quran by Abdullah Yusuf Ali and this time, instead of, um, you know, committing myself to one page a day, I'm just reading a portion a day. It can be a few verses. It could be a whole surah, depending on how I feel, to be honest. But I'm, I'm paying particular attention this time. So, I'm beginning, um, the first surah, working my way through it. Uh, focusing particularly on the commentary of, uh, Abdullah, uh, Yusuf Ali, who is extraordinarily beautiful and insightful, profound, moving, spiritual, and erudite. This guy loves to quote brilliant western writers like William Shakespeare or Wordsworth or Milton or whatever. And so, I'm, I'm treasuring this kind of cross-fertilization between, um, this text, uh, and his knowledge of the Muslim tradition, of course, and his connecting with the great riches of the western literary tradition. And this is pretty much a unique, uh, aspect to this work. And so, I'm paying, as I say, I'm paying particular attention to the commentary as well as, uh, the text this time. And it's a, a beautiful read. And unlike the, uh, the Clear Quran, this is my copy I've been reading. Um, this is a very literary translation. Um, so it reminds me of reading, you know, great works of western literature as well. The translation of the Quran, the meanings of the Quran, uh, done with beautiful, uh, beautiful language. So, that's what I'm reading at the moment. That's one book.
Um, the other book, well, one of the other books, um, is this. This is a book by, uh, Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. It calls itself the definitive translation, newly revised, published by Oxford World Classics. There's a big thick tome. Now, I've been trying to read this for years. You know, I've been putting it off. I started it and stopped pretty much at the beginning, and now I'm nearly a quarter of the way through and I'm on fire with this. This is an amazing book. Many people, many great people, great writers have considered this to be the greatest novel ever written by Leo Tolstoy. I mean, what can I say about it? I mean, as someone quotes on the back, "If life could write, it would write like Tolstoy." Um, Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic Wars and the French invasion of Russia. Now, that may sound a bit, you know, who cares, ancient history. All I can say is the reason for this novel is the novel itself. There's a reason why so many people think it's the greatest novel ever written. It is extraordinary. I'm not even going to pretend to try and explain to you why it's such an amazing book. It just is. If you fancy an extraordinary piece of literature to escape into and to enrich your emotions and your intellectual life, this is pretty amazing. This particular, um, translation, um, was, uh, was done by, uh, two people, uh, Louise and Alma Mohr. Um, they translated it and provided the notes. They actually knew Tolstoy and Tolstoy, uh, endorsed their translation into English. So, I'm reading that.
Um, another book I'm reading at the moment. Oh, I do like big books, huge books, is this one. This is Understanding Salafism: Seeking the Path of the Pious Predecessors by someone called Yasir Qadhi. Now, I'm sure you all know who he is, so I'm not going to, uh, introduce him. But he does make clear, and I was quite surprised, that this is his first academic book ever. And I thought, is that real? But that's what he says. It's published, uh, by One World, uh, Academic, and it is a very academic book. In other words, he's not, as some people might think, he's not promoting an agenda. Now, he's a former Salafi, but he draws on his experience in the Salafi movement to really bring out an insider's view of Salafism and understanding it accurately. So, if he succeeds, he succeeds by being objective and scholarly in his analysis of the origins of Salafism, its great diversity, the different kinds of movements intellectually and historically and theologically. And I think he does actually. Upon looked at the back cover, there are, uh, excellent reviews from Professor Jonathan Brown, uh, Professor John, uh, Hoover. Um, "Yasir Qadhi's Understanding Salafism," he says, "is a true gem." Now, I went to a conference earlier this year at Birkbeck, um, well, yes, was there, this University of London here in London, and, uh, devoted to this. And there were professors from Oxford, Oxbridge University, uh, there was John Hoover, of course, from Nottingham University, and other academics, and they were discussing his work with Yasir Qadhi, and the overwhelming impression from these specialists, not all of them are Muslims, was this is an outstanding work of scholarship. And I can see why they think that. It is very good. And inshallah, I will, uh, interview or, or discuss this work with Yasir Qadhi, uh, himself. One of the things that I was very ignorant of and I really enjoyed reading and and appreciated, without going into the whole book because it is huge, um, is what he calls Wahhabism and Salafism. What is Wahhabism, uh, and talking about the Saudi origins of that, but also how today's Wahhabism, so-called, is what he calls third-way Wahhabism. In fact, there is a first-way Wahhabism which is connected with the first Saudi state, and then there's a second-way Wahhabism, um, which is, uh, another phenomenon, a mutation, an evolution in this, uh, particular movement, and then the current wave of Wahhabism, and also, uh, the possibility of a fourth wave. So, Wahhabism isn't static. It's not like it just remained as it was in its original form. It did mutate and change and grow in really interesting ways. So, today's Salafis who one might call Wahhabis are not actually exactly the same as the first wave in important ways. I'm not going to go into the, the issues. But he also talks about the, the Shawa movement, which I really like, by the way. Um, the Maturalism, the males, which we all know about, and then something he calls the Jihadi Salafism and the Wahhabi Jihadi Salafi strand, exhausting. Um, talks about the Islamic University of Medina and, oh gosh, and the phenomena of Jihadi Salafism and so on. You really get a sense reading this historical and intellectual analysis of Salafism of the great diversity not only historically but also in the contemporary. It isn't just one thing. It is internally very diverse and people have strong arguments and disagreements. Salafis do amongst them, amongst themselves. So, those are three of the books I'm reading. I am reading another couple of books. One is, uh, the history of Germany, believe it or not, and another one as well, but I'm not going to go into those now.
But what I am going to go into, as promised initially, uh, are the must-read books of 2026, according to me. Um, so this is a pretty random choice, but there's this one. This is the first one I'm going to mention. Muslim Europe: A Journey in Search of a 1,400-Year History. Now, this has just been published. The author is, uh, Tharik Osman, um, who's both a journalist and, uh, an academic at the University of Groningen. Um, and just to give you a flavor of what it is, and I've not read this, of course, so, um, he, it says this on the dust jacket, says this: "For over 1,400 years, Muslims have been an integral part of Europe's story." And this is so, so timely, given the, the drumbeat of Christian nationalism we're hearing. And of course, it's everywhere. And one wonders who is orchestrating this, but that's another subject. Yet, their contributions have been pushed to the margins or erased altogether. In Muslim Europe, award-winning author, uh, Tharik Osman restores this forgotten history in a revelatory journey across the continent. We tread in the footsteps of the first Muslims who arrived on European soil in AD 647. We travel through Cyprus, Sicily, Malta, Portugal, and Spain, learning about the continent's great caliphate culture and Muslim Commonwealth, encountering red-haired European sultans and Arabic-speaking Christian kings, the Sufi lodges of Cyprus and the palaces of Sicily. Can't wait to read this. Forgotten Muslim pioneers. Never heard of these people. Like Abbas ibn Firnas gave us flight, invented flight, the flying machine. Ibn Rushd gifted us modern philosophy and the cross-fertilization of faiths and cultures birthed Europe's Christian Renaissance. So, this is a renaissance before the European Renaissance. For 12 centuries, Muslim Europe was a sanctuary for the continent's Jews. Recalling the poignant voices of Hasdai ibn Shaprut and, uh, Abraham ibn Ezra, Jews flourished under Muslim protection, triggering the Jewish Golden Age. How different that world is from the world of today, isn't it extraordinary? For the first time, Muslim Europe lays bare the cause of our collective Islamic amnesia by mapping Europe's anti-Muslim DNA through medieval crusader narratives and nation-building myths. But Islam was never a sideshow to Western culture. Hear this, Western world. It was an integral, it was integral to its development for over 1,400 years. Deep, learned, and utterly convincing, this first Muslim Eurocentric history of the continent dismantles the myth of Europe's Judeo-Christian cultural foundation and offers nothing less than a profound shift in our self-understanding." Wow. Um, so that's quite something. And the, uh, this is published by Penguin, a leading and very respected, uh, publisher. So, this is on my must-read list, uh, for 2026. Muslim Europe, something we really need to hear more about. And inshallah, I will interview the author of this book as well.
Now, oh, have a sip of tea, because why not? Anyway, the next book, uh, I want to read, not unrelated, actually, is this one called The Islamic Moses. It says, "How the Prophet Inspired Jews and Muslims to Flourish Together and Change the World" by Mustafa Akyol, who I had the pleasure of, uh, interviewing about his other work called The Islamic Jesus: How the King of the Jews Became a Prophet of the Muslims. And I have read this several times, absolutely excellent. It's very much aware of recent, uh, academic scholarship as well as the Islamic tradition and the Christian views. Um, so it's very, uh, very good. So I was very excited, uh, when I discovered that he had published this book. This came out earlier, uh, quite some time ago, earlier in the year, I think, and I've yet to read it, of course. Um, and it says on the inside, uh, dust jacket, very, again, this is quite timely. "There is one human mentioned in the Quran more than any other." And of course, it's a fun question to ask non-Muslims, who is mentioned more than anyone else in the Quran? They're all thinking Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad. No, it was Moses. Why is that? The Jewish prophet dominates the Islamic scripture? Because he is the role model for Muhammad, Islam's own prophet. This is what the book says, by the way. And it's not an Islamic way of looking at it, but hey, because Islam, just like Christianity, is deeply intertwined with Judaism. Although surprisingly little attention has been given to this fascinating connection between the two religions, Mustafa Akyol takes his readers on a theological and historical journey through that much neglected side of the Islamic triangle, the Judeo-Islamic tradition. I'm always hearing about the Judeo-Christian tradition and how that is allegedly the foundation of the West, and we've seen that that is not quite the case. But the Judeo-Islamic tradition is also a thing and it's often overlooked. Using Moses's presence in the Quran as a jumping-off point, Akyol explores the first historical encounter between Muslims and Jews in ancient Arabia, the creative symbiosis and mutual enrichment that occurred between the two religions in medieval times, and the modern emergence, development, and perception of the two kindred traditions. At a time of bitter conflict in the Middle East, to put it understatedly, The Islamic Moses dives into the older, deeper, and unexpectedly brighter story of Jews and Muslims. Because historically, the norm, the normative, the tradition is peaceful coexistence between Jews and Muslims. What we're seeing now, uh, in the Middle East, is extremely untypical and and almost unprecedented, and yet some people think this is how it is between the two religions. It's not. This is an aberration, not the norm. So, uh, that's something I really want to get my teeth into. The Islamic Moses by Mustafa Akyol.
Um, the next book I really want to read, I've been, uh, I bought this early this year and I still haven't got around to reading it, uh, is this biography. It's a beautiful cover by someone called Adam Shatz. The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon. And it's got some amazing, uh, reviews. "Engrossing," says The Washington Post. "Absorbing," says The New York Times. "Insightful," says The Financial Times. So, if you don't know who Frantz Fanon is, you should know who he is, which is why I must read this. Uh, it says on the back cover, oh, it has won lots of awards, this particular, uh, biography. On the back cover, it says, "Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique, a French colony, in 1925. As a young man, he volunteered to fight in De Gaulle's army for the liberation of France and trained to become a doctor and a psychiatrist. His experiences as a black man under French colonial rule had a profound effect on him. He was later reassigned to a hospital in French Algeria. It was here that he became involved in the rebellion of the National Liberation Front, the FLN, who fought to break free from colonial power. Fanon's work for the FLN as a propagandist and psychiatrist became highly contentious. His final work, The Wretched of the Earth," by the way, that's his great work, which is still read very much today, The Wretched of the Earth. I've not read that either, but I'm told it is a must-read, and it's still on the curriculum in many university courses, The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Uh, his final work was published in 1961 and has proved to be one of the most controversial yet influential books of our time. The Rebel's Clinic is a searing biography of the short and harrowing life of Frantz Fanon and the powerful legacy that remains." So that's why I want to read this extraordinary book because of his powerful legacy.
Uh, so the penultimate, oh no, the last book I'm going to mention because I could go on and on, but don't, this is long enough, I think, is, uh, this book, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of Modern Knowledge by Wael Hallaq. So, this is an absolute, uh, must-read. Um, this is a heavy, uh, academic work and in some ways, it's a response or development, uh, further of this book by Edward Said, Orientalism. This book comes in many different covers. This is just, uh, the one in, uh, the Modern Classics version by Penguin, which I've read, um, but Wael Hallaq both critiques Orientalism by, I would say, and develops the whole discussion much, much further. And I'll just give you a flavor again, I've not read this, although I'm very much aware of this work and why, why it's a must-read for me. He, it says, "Since Edward Said's foundational work, Orientalism, the aforementioned, has been singled out for critique as the quintessential example of Western intellectuals' collaboration with oppression. But has Orientalism come to stand in for all of the sins of European modernity at the cost of neglecting the complicity of the rest of the academic disciplines? In this landmark theoretical investigation, Wael Hallaq re-evaluates and deepens the critique of Orientalism in order to deploy it for a rethinking of the foundations of the modern project. Refusing to isolate or scapegoat Orientalism, Restating Orientalism, this work extends the critique." This is what he does. So, that this critique was valid in its own kind of way, but he really didn't, I think this is the argument, critique the epistemology of the West. He didn't go deep enough into its philosophical substructure, the paradigm, the background paradigm that we all, um, live in, uh, academically in the West. So, he extends the critique into other fields, from law, philosophy, and scientific inquiry to core ideas of, uh, academic thought such as sovereignty and the self. Wael Hallaq goes really deep into the Orientalist worldview. Hallaq traces their involvement in colonialism, mass annihilation, and systematic destruction of the natural world, interrogating and historicizing the set of causes that permitted modernity to wed knowledge to power. This is really powerful stuff. Restating Orientalism offers a bold rethinking of the theory of the author, the concept. So, a bold rethinking of the theory of the author. So, who is the author? A bold rethinking of the concept of sovereignty. He looks at the Gaze and the place of the secular Western self in the modern project. Reopening the problem of power and knowledge to an ethical critique and ultimately theorizing an exit from modernity's predicament." So, he's offering an alternative, which is actually quite Islamic, the alternative. A remarkably ambitious attempt to overturn the foundations of a wide range of academic disciplines while also drawing on the best they have to offer. So, he's not just trashing, he's also reconstructing and preserving what is good. That's me, not the cover. "Restating Orientalism exposes the depth of academia's lethal complicity in modern forms of capitalism, colonialism, and hegemonic power." Gosh. So, that's, uh, quite something. So, that's Restating Orientalism, a critique of modern, uh, knowledge. So, this is a heavy academic work. Uh, Wael Hallaq's work is extremely interesting and important and I think very stimulating and an absolute must-read. So, I must finally get around to looking at this work. I think that's probably enough.
Um, let me know what your, uh, must-reads for 2026 are. Uh, be fascinated to know, uh, what you think we should be reading, uh, now and, and any, any books you think I should be reading, uh, that I've not looked at yet as well. So, let me know what you think. Until next time.