Machine summary:
Thus the claim made by the publisher on the blurb of the book that the subject has been attempted for the first time, is not correct, Nevertheless, I am partially in agreement with him, as the book under review embraces all the historical and cultural aspects of the holy cities of Islam, while the other works deal with either one particular topic or a group of topics but decidedly not with as many topics as the present book deals with comprehensively, though briefly.
. The contents of the book show that the author has made the aforesaid two cities; Mecca and Madinah, the central point of her descriptions, though she has also · discussed religion, arts and culture in tbe book ..
There are also Muslims who have never visited them but have religious sentiments and a genuine desire to study their history, , art and culture, and to get some idea of the bazars, · buildings, particularly the sacred buildings of Ka'ba in Mecca arid the mausoleum and mosque of the Holy Prophet in Madinah.
The author should have, instead, dealt with one topic in a chapter; for example, she might have described the origin and birth of sculpture, architecture, painting or music a~d traced its development till the present day in a continuous flow of historical sequence ..
' There are many important copies of the Qur'an in the Salar Jung Museum described in this catalogue.