Set in medieval Palermo, this is the fourth novel in Tariq Ali’s celebrated Islam Quintet.

The fourth novel in Tariq Ali’s Islam Quintet is set in medieval Palermo, a Muslim city rivaling Baghdad and Cordoba in size and splendor. The year is 1153. The Normans are ruling Siqqiliya, but Arab culture and language dominate the island and the court. Sultan Rujari (King Roger) surrounds himself with Muslim intellectuals, several concubines, and an administration presided over by gifted eunuchs. The bishops, expecting to be at the pinnacle of power, are angered by the decadence of the court. In this captivating novel, Tariq Ali charts the life and loves of the medieval cartographer Muhammed al-Idrisi. Torn between his close friendship with the sultan and his friends who are leaving the island or plotting a resistance to Norman rule, Idrisi finds temporary solace in the harem; but, confronted by the common people of Noto and Catania, his conscience is troubled.

A Sultan in Palermo is a mythic novel in which pride, greed, and lust intermingle with resistance and greatness. Set in the past, it has haunting resonance today.

Praise for Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree

“All human frailty and nobility is here . . . an imaginative tour de force.” — Sunday Telegraph

Praise for The Book of Saladin

“Grippingly well told, brilliantly paced, remarkably convincing in its historical depiction of a fateful relationship, a narrative for our time, haunted by distant events and characters who are closer to us than we dreamed.” — Edward Said

Praise for The Stone Woman

“Tales of anguish, longing, lust, and love all find their way to The Stone Woman—Ali paints a vivid picture of a fading world.” — New York Times Book Review

Tariq Ali is a writer and filmmaker. He has written more than a dozen books on world history and politics, including, most recently, Bush in Babylon and The Clash of Fundamentalisms, as well as five novels, and scripts for both stage and screen. A new edition of his autobiographical Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties, is also published by Verso.

246 pages

Cloth
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 025 3
£12.99 / US$24 / CAN$36

Paper
ISBN-13: 978 1 84467 101 4
£7.99 / US$15.95 / CAN$21

Also available in the Islam Quintet:

The Stone Woman

The Book of Saladin

Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree