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Throughout, the same standards are applied to rulers and rebels, victors and defeated, without exempting celebrated figures from historical scrutiny. Comparisons with other legal traditions and modern humanitarian principles place these events within a broader history of humanity's attempts to restrain the violence of war.
Neither an unqualified defence of Islamic history nor a prosecution of it, this is an inquiry into the distance between principle and practice, scripture and sovereignty, law and power.
Drawing upon classical Islamic sources, historical scholarship and comparative legal reasoning, Sword and Scripture offers a thought-provoking study for readers interested in Islamic civilisation, military history, religious law, political authority and the enduring moral questions of warfare.
At its heart lies a question that reaches far beyond the seventh century:
What becomes of a law when the power to enforce it passes into the hands of those willing to break it?
