Muslim Encounters with the West, Modernity and the Present

This book seeks to explore the Muslim encounters with Europe from the earliest times down to the fag end of the nineteenth century. It tries to highlight the geographical consciousness of the Muslims regarding Europe and the subsequent interactions both peaceful and otherwise that went into the making of a complex history. It tries to explain the intricacies of the Islamic world along ideological lines and how it affected the course of Islamic history and civilization. With the onset of colonialism and its intrusion into the 'Third World', things took a turn for the worse as the erstwhile Muslim powers such as the Ottomans and the Mughals came to grips with the ideological, scientific and the military firepower of the European imperialists that eventually sealed their fate. Other themes have also been accounted for, for instance, the Balkan Wars, the rise of the Turkish Republic, India - Pakistan relations during the Cold War, and the Syrian refugee crisis and Russian involvement.