• Introduction; 1. Islam in European thought; 2. Wednesday afternoon remembered; 3. Marshall Hodgson and the venture of Islam; 4. Islamic history, Middle Eastern history, modern history; 5. T. E. Lawrence and Louis Massignon; 6. In search of a new Andalusia: Jacques Berque and the Arabs; 7. Culture and change: the Middle East in the eighteenth century; 8. Bustani's encylopaedia; 9. Sulaiman al-Bustani andThe Iliad.

'He has an understanding of both western and Arab-Muslim intellectual traditions unmatched in his generation. His writing is elegant and judicious, marked by a passionate concern to get as near to the truth as possible … In these essays Hourani concentrates on how knowledge of Islam came to the West through the work of great orientalists such as Ignaz Goldziher, Hamilton Gibb, Louis Massignon, Jacques Berque and Marshall Hodgson … Wise voices like Hourani's, uncontaminated by religiosity or lust for power, are especially needed at this time.' New Statesman and Society