Allah O Akbar begins the call to prayer that resonates around minarets in towns and villages from Sinkiang to Morocco, from Paris to Timbuktu. Wherever in the world you are, the message is the same: ‘God is Great’. It is also, however, the cry of fundamentalists throughout the lands of the faithful. Abbas, a member of the prestigious photo agency Magnum, has spent seven years travelling through the Islamic world to capture the diverse and striking images that make up this extraordinary personal diary.

As a photojournalist Abbas has covered major political events in the developing world including wars and revolutions, driven by a desire to understand and expose the intricacy of the internal strains pulling within Muslim societies. Abbas is undoubtedly one of the world’s leading makers of the ‘telling’ picture, and the combined immediacy and subtlety of the photographic images create a constant visual stimulus.