The Hall of a Thousand Columns

Tim Mackintosh-Smith has already entranced armchair travelers with his tales of taking to the road, across the centuries, with Ibn Battutah - the great Arab wanderer who from 1325 to 1355 visited most of the known world between Morocco and China, collecting a treasure of tales. Travels with a Tangerine left us on the eastern borders of the old Islamic lands: in this new chapter of the epic journey, Mackintosh-Smith is led through the memories of a man who died ten lifetimes ago. He reveals an India far off the beaten path of Taj and Raj, where a dead Muslim poses as a Hindu deity, Jesus pops up in the pulpit of a mosque, and the rotten tooth of a mad sultan is revered as a saint, India was the jewel in IB's turban: nearly 700 years on, it sparkles again in this book.