Good ministers and preachers still have doubts. If you haven't got them, if you believe you've found the answer in this or that practice, ritual or scripture, and that that is the universal truth for everyone, at all time, you've lost it. The answer is in the search, in growing in wisdom, experience and love. The myths, stories and doctrines of Christianity have shaped our culture, the way we think and act, and they can still help us on our path if we let them, give them room to breathe and change us.

The chapters of this volume contain a series of detailed studies of various aspects of Fatimid rule in the regions of its Mediterranean and Near Eastern empire, 909 to 1171 AD, including separately the role of the imam-caliph, wazīr, chief qāḍī and dāʿī, and other political and public offices of this Shīʿī caliphate. Geographically it covers North Africa, Sicily, the Levant, Hijaz, Cairo and Egypt in the medieval period, with special attention to books, science and libraries, court society, festivals, intellectual traditions and Ismaili doctrines, its religious...