This book is derived almost entirely from interviews with its characters or with people close to them, including their relatives, colleagues, and friends. I have tried to attribute sources wherever possible, but in some cases I have omitted them for narrative purposes. The material on Soleyman of Adana in chapter 4 is drawn mainly from two sources: Fifty-Three Years in Syria by Henry H. Jessup (Reading, UK: Garnet, 2002 [1910]) and Extremist Shiites: The Ghulat Sects by Matti Moosa (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988). In chapter 6, my account of Islamic history is indebted to God’s Rule: Government and Islam by Patricia Crone (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004) and The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In by Hugh Kennedy (Philadelphia: Da Capo, 2007). For the early years of Rached Ghannouchi and Beji Caid Essebsi in chapter 7, I drew on Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat Within Islamism by Azzam S. Tamimi (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) and Habib Bourguiba: Le Bon Grain et l’Ivraie by Beji Caid Essebsi (Tunis: Sud, 2009).
In a broader sense, the book draws on a large number of sources on the history and culture of the Middle East, absorbed over many years. This is not an academic work, but I would like to acknowledge a debt to some of these authors. On Egypt, The Society of the Muslim Brothers by Richard P. Mitchell (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), The Muslim Brotherhood: The Evolution of an Islamist Movement by Carrie Rosefsky Wickham (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), Cairo: The City Victorious by Max Rodenbeck (New York: Knopf, 1999), and Egypt on the Brink: From Nasser to Mubarak by Tarek Osman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). On Libya, A History of Modern Libya by Dirk Vandewalle (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006) and Sandstorm: Libya from Gaddafi to Revolution by Lindsey Hilsum (London: Faber & Faber, 2013). On Syria, Asad of Syria: The Struggle for the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics, 1945–1958 by Patrick Seale (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), and The Asian Mystery Illustrated in the History, Religion, and Present State of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria by Samuel Lyde (London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1860). On Yemen, Tribes, Government, and History in Yemen by Paul Dresch (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), Yemen Divided: The Story of a Failed State in South Arabia by Noel Brehony (New York: I. B. Taurus, 2013), The Last Refuge: Yemen, al-Qaeda, and America’s War in Arabia by Gregory D. Johnsen (New York: W. W. Norton, 2013), and Yemen: The Unknown Arabia by Tim Mackintosh-Smith (Woodstock, NY: Overlook, 2000). On Tunisia, A History of Modern Tunisia by Kenneth Perkins (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) and Notre Histoire by Habib Bourguiba Jr. (Tunis: Cérès, 2013). On Arab and Ottoman history in general, From Deep State to Islamic State: An Arab Counter-Revolution and Its Jihadist Legacy by Jean-Pierre Filiu (London: Hurst, 2015), A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire by M. Şükrü Hanioğlu (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East by Elizabeth F. Thompson (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), A Peace to End All Peace: Creating the Middle East, 1914–1922 by David Fromkin (New York: Henry Holt, 1989), The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967 by Fouad Ajami (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981), Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement by George Antonius (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1939), The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East by Eugene Rogan (New York: Basic Books, 2015), Self-Criticism after the Defeat by Sadik al-Azm (London: Saqi Books, 2011), and A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002).