Margins
Stranger to History book cover
Stranger to History
A Son's Journey through Islamic Lands
2007
First Published
3.71
Average Rating
336
Number of Pages

“Indispensable reading for anyone who wants a wider understanding of the Islamic world, of its history and its politics.” —Financial Times Aatish Taseer’s fractured upbringing left him with many questions about his own identity. Raised by his Sikh mother in Delhi, his father, a Pakistani Muslim, remained a distant figure. Stranger to History is the story of the journey he made to try to understand what it means to be Muslim in the twenty-firstcentury. Starting from Istanbul, Islam’s once greatest city, he travels to Mecca, its most holy, and then home through Iran and Pakistan. Ending in Lahore, at his estranged father’s home, on the night Benazir Bhutto was killed, it is also the story of Taseer’s divided family over the past fifty years. Recent events have added a coda to Stranger to History, as his father was murdered by a political assassin. A new introduction by the author reflects on how this event changes the impact of the book, and why its message is more relevant than ever.

Avg Rating
3.71
Number of Ratings
837
5 STARS
19%
4 STARS
44%
3 STARS
29%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
2%
goodreads

Author

548 Market St PMB 65688, San Francisco California 94104-5401 USA
© 2025 Paratext Inc. All rights reserved