William Dalrymple

World Affairs

Pakistan reborn?

• 21 February 2008
• 19 comments

Confounding all predictions, the Pakistani people have clearly demonstrated that they want to choose their own rulers and decide their own future. There is a consensus from Lahore to Karachi

Religion

Copts & Brothers

• 13 December 2007
• 4 comments

A surprising dialogue between the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's Coptic Christians suggests a new way of working with Islamist parties.

Books

How the east was won

• 05 July 2007
• 2 comments

The British empire was built not simply on greed, cruelty and oppression - but on surprising exchanges and encounters. The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: a Woman in World History Linda Colley Harper Press, 400pp, £25

Middle East

Schools of hope

• 30 April 2007
• 3 comments

With the virtual collapse of government schools, many parents have to depend on Wahhabi-funded madrasas. But a new foundation aims to provide quality, secular, subsidised education. It deserves our support

Books

Unearthing history

• 23 April 2007

City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish: Greek lives in Roman Egypt Peter Parsons Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 320pp, £25 ISBN 0297645889

Politics

The last Mughal and a clash of civilisations

• 16 October 2006
• 6 comments

East and west face each other across a divide that some call a religious war. Suicide jihadis take what they see as defensive action and innocent people are killed. But this is 1857. William Dalrymple on lessons from the Raj for the neo-cons

World Affairs

The many and the happy few

• 05 June 2006

Syria - Politically repressive, the minority Alawite rulers have encouraged a surprising religious tolerance

Society

India - Introduction

• 30 January 2006
• 1 comment

Ideas

NS Christmas Essay - 'Scholars are only now beginning to realise the extent to which the Mughal emperors adopted what most would assume to be outrightly Christian devotions'

• 19 December 2005

In the year that Islamist terrorism finally reached London, it is important to emphasise that Christianity and Islam are not nearly so far apart as both Bin Laden and the neo-cons would like us to believe

World Affairs

Inside Islam's ''terror schools''

• 28 March 2005
• 1 comment

Madrasas are Islamic colleges accused by the US of incubating terrorism and the attacks of 9/11. From Pakistan, William Dalrymple investigates the threat