The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam
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The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam
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A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
The fascinating story of Queen Elizabeth’s secret alliance with the Ottoman sultan and outreach to the Muslim world by The New York Times bestselling author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps (published in the UK as This Orient Isle)
“A neglected aspect of Elizabethan history that Brotton brings vividly to life in this elegant and entertaining book.†—Jason Goodwin,The New York Times Book Review  “Brotton is a gifted writer who presents this history as an exciting series of critical and suspense-filled encounters.†—The Washington Post  “Brotton’s wonderful book reveals… how Muslims shaped English culture, consumerism and literature during the half millennium between the Crusades and the rise of the British Empire.†—The Wall Street Journal
We think of England as a great power whose empire once stretched from India to the Americas, but when Elizabeth Tudor was crowned Queen, it was just a tiny and rebellious Protestant island on the fringes of Europe, confronting the combined power of the papacy and of Catholic Spain. Broke and under siege, the young queen sought to build new alliances with the great powers of the Muslim world. She sent an emissary to the Shah of Iran, wooed the king of Morocco, and entered into an unprecedented alliance with the Ottoman Sultan Murad III, with whom she shared a lively correspondence.
The Sultan and the Queen tells the riveting and largely unknown story of the traders and adventurers who first went East to seek their fortunes—and reveals how Elizabeth’s fruitful alignment with the Islamic world, financed by England’s first joint stock companies, paved the way for its transformation into a global commercial empire.