Two Billion Caliphs: Our Past, Our Present, and A Vision for the Future
"It's a form of Islamic education that's very welcoming and accessible."
An Islam For Tomorrow. Today.
Two Billion Caliphs: A Vision of a Muslim Future is officially out today! It took a few years to write, and it might’ve been delayed a bit by COVID, but it’s really the product of so much more. A lifetime of learning, thinking, trying, coming up short—and getting back up to try some more.
It’s four decades of a journey through faith in the world. Mine. And ours.
Photo Credit: Z, of course! For the second time in just as many posts, I asked our middlemost to come up with a headline image for the post, something that could capture the book—and your attention. And she did.
You can buy Two Billion Caliphs anywhere books (and audiobooks) are sold, but I’d love it if you purchased it through the Sunday Schooled Bookshop. Your purchase not only supports independent and local bookstores, which need our patronage, but also helps sustain this Substack for the months and years of growth ahead.
When I started writing Two Billion Caliphs, it was with a simple thought. I’d already spent decades studying Islam—and teaching Islam, to all kinds of people. It stood to reason that I could compose an inviting, engaging, compelling explanation of our beliefs, beliefs that—let’s face it—have suffered from so much misrepresentation.
If they’re even represented at all.
Nearly two billion people in the world are connected to Islam. Yet how often does anyone even try to convey why so many people are so passionately attached to Islam, let alone actually express what is so exciting, challenging, and beautiful about Islam? When did you last read a really gripping, thoughtful account of our worldview?
That’s bad enough when, say, a friend or colleague expresses curiosity. But what about when we look for resources for our kids, communities, and schools?
Where do we go then?
So that’s part of the book, then. The seed of it. The intention behind it.
But while drafting Two Billion Caliphs, I went through some major changes in my life, upheavals, illnesses, career transitions, even an entire existential reconstruction. (I’m a suburban Midwestern stepdad, as of course every regular reader knows.) My researching Islam wasn’t just an abstract exercise, then.
That investigation was helping me understand why I wanted to be Muslim all over again, empowering me with the confidence I needed to keep on it when the going got rough. So, yes, anyone who wants to learn more about Islam and Muslims—and anyone who wants to pass on their love for Islam—will love this book.
As a good friend said, “It’s a form of Islamic education that’s welcoming and accessible.”
He told me he thought it’d be great not just for parents, for educators, community leaders, teachers, and anyone and everyone into religion—and especially the future of religion—but especially for kids who are just beginning their own investigations into their faith, trying to make sense of Islam for themselves.
Because this is not just a book about how Muslims make sense of the world. It also offers Muslims a chance to do so much more, by pushing us to revisit our core beliefs, most basic commitments, and fundamental values, and think authentically, boldly, and creatively about how those can shape a future that our descendants deserve.
An Islam that can support them—and launch them forward. An Islam that can nourish them—and challenge them. An Islam that can improve them—and motivate them. An Islam that isn’t inherited, suffocating, or permanently victimized and despondent. But an Islam that’s freely chosen, encouraging, dynamic, and hopeful.
My ambition is to inspire a swelling movement of like-minded people, who are convinced that what we need is a more empowered, autonomous, and confident ummah, one in which we can all realize the real reason we’re here: To be God’s Caliphs on Earth. Each of us. All of us.
You, and me, and give or take two billion more.
Writers and Readers Praise Two Billion Caliphs
This is a book that only Haroon Moghul could write. It is honest and hopeful, beautiful and painful, visionary and personal. It is at once a history of Islam and a guidebook to your soul. There are paragraphs so perfect, I read them aloud to family and friends.
—Eboo Patel, author of We Need to Build
In his stunning new Two Billion Caliphs, Haroon Moghul describes the Hagar of sacred text as representing ‘a kind of ambling Islam.’ In that same spirit, Moghul’s work ambles and careens across time, space, theology, and intimate self-discovery, to locate a new take on Islam. Moghul’s vision of a collective, personal, loving, and meaningful faith—born of his own frailty, curiosity, and longing—requires nothing less than the opening of a spiritual vein. What emerges is honest and transformational and desperately needed, in all of our conversations around religion.
—Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor, Slate
In this touching, moving, and thought-provoking book, Haroon Moghul boldly proclaims, and elegantly articulates, the big paradigm shift desperately needed in Islamic thinking: Muslims should let go of the political ‘caliphate,’ with all its religious rigidity, fury, and oppressiveness. Instead, they should revive the original Quranic ‘caliphate’: the wisdom and moral agency within the heart of every human being. I cannot applaud him more.
—Mustafa Akyol, senior fellow on Islam and modernity at the Cato Institute, author of Reopening Muslim Minds: A Return to Reason, Freedom, and Tolerance
Just about a week ago, fellow Substacker Umar Lee published an honest, searching review, carefully considering many of the book’s points, pushing me on several of them, and concluding not only that he enjoyed the book, but “serious students of Islam in America will as well.”
His comments deserve a deeper engagement. I hope I have the chance to pursue that with him.
And just yesterday, I got this beautiful email from Bill Rauch, the Artistic Director of the Perelman Performing Arts Center in New York City:
Haroon, it has taken me a long while, but I finally had the joy of reading your book that you so kindly sent me in advance of its full release. I really wanted to finish it before the release date, and I’ve just gotten in under the proverbial wire. Your extraordinary intelligence, your virtuosity as a writer, and most importantly, your deep faith and your love of your children are such a gift to every reader. I learned so much from reading your words, and I am so grateful that I know you.
Two Billion Caliphs On Tour
My sincere hope is that Two Billion Caliphs sparks conversations within families, within mosques, within communities, and within institutions.
I hope it nuances how people see Islam—including many Muslims.
I’m excited to be part of those conversations whenever I can—below is a list of my confirmed appearances so far, with more to come, inshallah.
The Two Billion Caliphs Book Tour
On Monday, April 25, I’ll be at an Iftar dinner at Amherst College talking about Two Billion Caliphs. There’s food, of course. But also books.*
On Tuesday, April 26, I’ll be at an Iftar dinner at Mount Holyoke College, talking about what I’ve learned in four decades of living. A signing will follow.*
*The Amherst and Mount Holyoke events are only open to students at those campuses.
On May 18, I’ll be in Boston, Massachusetts. Books for sale. A reading, conversation, and signing.
On May 19, I’ll be in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 7:30pm at Parkway Central Library. Books will be for sale and signing—but that’s hardly the most exciting part: I’ll be in conversation with a leading American scholar of Islam, a good friend, mentor, and thought partner—Professor Adnan Zulfiqar. Find out more here.
On June 22nd, I’ll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables, Florida, in the greater Miami area, at 7pm. There will also be a reading and signing—and a great conversation with a really dynamic, thoughtful Muslim leader. More soon!
As this post goes to press, I’m finalizing appearances in Ohio, Michigan, New Hampshire, Colorado, and Texas. Full details on these as soon as they’re available!
Of course, if you’d like to organize an event, including about the new book, please fill out this form, and I’ll be in touch as soon as possible.
In the meantime, order Two Billion Caliphs at Bookshop or anywhere else books (and audiobooks) are sold.
And if you’d like to learn more about how Two Billion Caliphs translates into our daily Muslim life, keep up with this Substack—it’s free to subscribe!