Travels in Muslim Lands: An Event With Tharik Hussain & Rebecca Lowe

Bradford has big plans to host a series of events this June for its annual Bradford Literature Festival. Many artists, poets, journalists and authors are scheduled to appear including the young and old. One such planned event is based around the hot topic of travel writing; more specifically travel writing whilst traversing the Muslim lands.

Tharik Hussain and Rebecca Lowe are both impressive travel writers who have been in the game for a long time now. It is a huge honour that Bradford will be welcoming the two to contribute by delving deeper into their books and explaining the narrative. Travel across the Muslim lands remains an enigma to many people including Muslims themselves. For this reason, Rebecca and Tharik have written their books to present a different narrative to the world; a narrative which quite often goes unnoticed due to the negative media portrayals.

Tharik’s book discusses his journey around the Balkan region with his wife and two daughters. Unlike what the world might think about this post-soviet region, Tharik wanted to get up, close and personal with the locals. His book documents the Muslims he met, the mosques he visited and the special encounters which never make it to the media.

Rebecca’s story is quite remarkable. She chose to cycle her way across Europe and the Middle East at a time when the region was experiencing high levels of tension. Travelling solo, Rebecca covered a distance of 11,000 km from Europe to Turkey covering countries such as Oman, Sudan, Egypt and Turkey. Her story is fascinating and revives the genre of travel writing with its refreshing and unique stories of simple human relationships.

More About The Authors

Tharik Hussain is a successful author, travel writer and journalist who focuses on Islamic heritage and culture. The Times Literary Supplement gave his book, ‘Minarets in the Mountains; A Journey into Muslim Europe’, the title of Book of the Year. What’s more, the Washington Post named his book Travel Book of the Year. Tharik has been involved in journalism for many years and has contributed to Lonely Planet guides which have gone on to receive awards.

Rebecca Lowe is a freelance journalist from London. She focuses on topics such as human rights and has travelled extensively across the Middle East and North Africa. Rebecca has contributed to publications such as the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Huffington Post, Economist, and Sunday Times Magazine. In her own words, she mentions her hope is to ‘foster a fuller, more nuanced understanding of the region by telling stories through the lens of people rather than politics.’