In a series of controversial interviews, and in the stories and non-fiction of The Second Plane, Martin Amis’s forthright views on Islam and Muslims led to charges of racism and Islamophobia. This chapter explores the nature of Amis’s objections to what he termed the ‘dependent mind’ of religion more broadly and Islam in particular. Amis repeatedly blurs the key distinction between Islam and Islamism, with the result that his charges against political Islam rebound on whole communities. The chapter situates these views in the highly charged context of the post-9/11 moment, showing how his hostility to Islam – based on an ideal of western culture under threat – has strong affinities with resurgent Orientalist and Islamophobic currents of thought circulating at the time. It argues that this derivative quality in Amis’s thinking limits the effectiveness of his defence of rationalism and gives impetus to discriminatory attitudes and stereotypes that are still with us today.

This chapter explores Aurangzeb’s princely career between his birth in 1618 and his accession to the Mughal throne in 1658. In it, close attention is paid to the decades-long efforts by Prince Aurangzeb to position himself for a successful bid to become the next Mughal emperor. This chapter examines the slow growth of Aurangzeb’s personal household, his networks of support, his efforts to gain military and administrative experience, his attempts to raise money for himself, and his campaign to build his own public image. This chapter draws heavily on his personal letters, a source that has been infrequently used by other historians because it comprises two massive volumes and is in highly stylized Persian.

The final two weeks of ‘Alamgir’s life is the focus of this chapter. It highlights various themes and characters (some important, others minor) to illustrate daily life at court at the end of his long reign while reflecting back on ‘Alamgir, his reign, and the Mughal Empire. There are sections devoted to the relationship between ‘Alamgir and his three surviving sons, the tensions between his sons and grandsons, the impoverishment of the Mughal nobility, biographies of some of his favorite nobles and last surviving wife (Udaipuri Mahal), conversion to Islam, and the ill-fated Mughal struggle against the Marathas. Other sections highlight ‘Alamgir’s physical and mental frailties, his extraordinary work ethic, his attentiveness to intelligence gathering, and the deep sense of personal failure and self-recrimination at the end of his life. Together these stories offer insights on ‘Alamgir, the court, and the empire on the cusp of a new era that everyone feared might be even less settled than the one drawing to a close.

This chapter is devoted to the imperial eunuchate and begins by looking at the place of eunuchs in the life of the empire prior to 1658. This is followed by an examination of the rising presence of eunuchs in Aurangzeb’s princely household and the central role eunuch loyalists played in helping ‘Alamgir consolidate his power post-1658. Despite ‘Alamgir’s concerns about the existence and trafficking of eunuchs, he also appreciated the strength and usefulness of the imperial eunuchate, and contributed to its growing power. This chapter also evaluates Khidmatgar Khan III, the most powerful eunuch in Mughal history and the head of the imperial eunuchate from the early 1690s to his death in 1704. Such power did not come without resistance from uncastrated men who were jealous of the eunuchate’s wealth and power. This included ‘Alamgir himself, who, despite heavy dependence on imperial eunuchs, tried to maintain some checks on them, even if these weakened toward the end of his life.

This chapter uses the twin rubrics of “state” and “sovereignty” to understand many of the most important or controversial aspects of ‘Alamgir’s forty-nine-year reign. What emerges is a portrait of a ruler who was, by turns, determined to restore law and order, protect social hierarchies, coopt or crush anyone who opposed his efforts, replenish the imperial treasury, and strengthen Mughal rule. Although ‘Alamgir mostly positioned himself as a typical Mughal emperor in terms of his sovereign self-expression, his style of renunciate sovereignty (at once Timurid and Islamic) radiated into the court and empire in distinctive ways. Ultimately, his decision to invade the Deccan in the early 1680s proved to be his and the Mughal Empire’s undoing. Against a backdrop of political and military failure, ‘Alamgir nonetheless held on to his throne. This chapter ends by arguing that his emergence as a living saint–emperor (Zinda Pir ‘Alamgir) was a key factor in his political survival.

Under Muslim rule of what they called al-Andalus, the caliphate of Córdoba became one of the premier centers of the Islamic world. Islam tolerated other People of the Book, as they called Christians and Jews, but with restrictions. Over the eight centuries in which Muslim forces held sway in Iberia, the various cultures and languages of the peninsula developed and blended to a certain extent, which came to be called convivencia (lit., living together). Nonetheless, Christian forces began a reconquest of the land from the Muslims, beginning in the north and moving in stages toward the south. They benefited from the fragmentation of rule in the Muslim areas and the frequent disruptions caused by successive invasions from North Africa. As Christian forces captured territory, they formed various kingdoms in Portugal, Castile-León, and Aragón. Loyal supporters received grants of land from grateful monarchs and thus became a landed aristocracy. By the end of the thirteenth century, what would be known as the Christian Reconquest was virtually complete.

The Army upheld religious observance and conformity. This was as true of the Hindu milieu of the Brigade of Gurkhas as it was of the Christian character of the wider Army. The Army’s ‘Christendom’ culture endured much longer than in civilian society: soldiers were expected to profess a religious affiliation, and mandatory worship did not disappear with the notional abolition of Sunday church parade in 1946. Only from the turn of the twenty-first century, and under the aegis of a New Labour government, did this situation begin to change. While the goal of making the Army more representative of society led to an increasing accent on recruiting from Britain’s ethnic and religious minorities, under the banner of equality, diversity and inclusion, Humanists began to challenge the Army’s Christian ascendancy. However, and although the proportion of soldiers professing ‘no religion’ (in fact, a remarkably varied category) grew in the early years of the twenty-first century, most notably after the end of major combat operations in Afghanistan, the appetite for fundamental religious change remained very limited, with Humanist aspirations being assimilated by the Army’s established culture of religious pluralism.

Most of the classical empires collapsed in the middle of the first millennium, but despite this collapse various regions of the world became more culturally, commercially, and politically integrated in the millennium that followed, a process traced in this chapter. Mercantile and religious networks, including Islam, linked growing cities and glittering courts, where hereditary rulers and their entourages of elites developed institutions and ceremonies that strengthened royal authority, and created courtly cultures with distinctive codes of behavior. All of these relied for their wealth on a spread and intensification of agriculture, which happened in both the eastern and western hemispheres, and was interwoven with changes in social and gender structures. Cites such as Constantinople, Tenochtitlan, and Hangzhou grew into large metropolises, and religion, trade, and diplomacy motivated people to travel, creating regional and transregional zones of exchange in goods and ideas.

The first decade of the nineteenth century was a time of British cultural reinvention, highlighted by the rise of Orientalism and comparative studies. Robert Southey emerged as a key figure during this period with his Orientalist poems that bookend the decade, Thalaba the Destroyer (1801) and The Curse of Kehama (1810). In this chapter, I analyze how Southey’s works reflect and advance Orientalist themes and forms, particularly through a deracinated Romantic subject. Southey creates this subject, free from cultural, religious, and political bounds, through an Orientalist licence for non-representation. This non-representation is seen in Southey’s flattening of time, space, characters, and objects. With the publication of Kehama by the end of the decade, I argue that Southey’s Orientalist licence intertwines with imperial logics of racial, ethnic, and religious othering. This othering reinforces a divide between British subjects and the Indian ‘other’, highlighting an individualism steeped in white Western dominance.

Psychological therapies are another focus for entanglement with spirituality. Prayer has caused concern in the literature, particularly in respect of boundary issues arising when clinicians pray with patients, but the nature of prayer is explored here rather as a way of giving attention to things that are most desired. Scientific evidence suggests that prayer is a form of positive religious coping for patients. Mindfulness, with its roots in Buddhism, is widely applied as a secular spiritual intervention that is helpful in a range of mental health conditions. Silence has long been recognised as a significant and meaningful phenomenon within psychotherapy, but also has its place in contemplative spiritual practices. A theme running through these three practices is that of careful attentiveness, in which spiritual and psychological concerns become entangled. Good clinical practice requires careful attention-giving, so there is a sense in which treatment planning in psychiatry can be considered a kind of prayer, understood as careful attentiveness to what is most desired by patients. Examples are drawn from Christian, Islamic and Buddhist spirituality and practice.