A Sultan in Palermo (Islam Quintet 4)

Set in twelfth-century Sicily, the novel follows the geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi at the court of Roger II. Idrisi works on the great geographical survey later known as the Tabula Rogeriana while navigating a kingdom in which Arabic, Greek, Latin, Jewish and Norman traditions meet under increasingly unequal political conditions. Torn between loyalty to the king and sympathy for Muslims resisting Norman rule, he is drawn into court intrigue, intellectual ambition and the struggle over Sicily’s future.