Justin Marozzi

A spirit of openness and inquiry once characterised the great metropolises of the Muslim world. No longer

Devotees of Patrick Leigh Fermor celebrate the charismatic writer and adventurer with a tour of his Mayfair haunts

Under Gaddafi, Libya was plagued by xenophobic attacks. But now its citizens are reveling in their new-found racial freedom

Libya will not be another Iraq. The doom-mongers in the Western media would be wise to focus on Libya’s massive business potential

The last of the wartime travel writers, Patrick Leigh Fermor, may have departed the scene, but the genre he graced is still thriving

Benghazi is bust. The UK government is needlessly witholding funds from the Libyan rebels as they battle Gaddafi’s forces. It must free the money now

‘More than 40 years later, it is immensely moving to see — and share — the delight of the countless brave Libyans whose revolution is bringing this unspeakable regime to an end’

British businesses are nowhere to be seen in Iraq, unlike the companies of those countries that opposed the war

‘The fighting in Somalia can no longer be dismissed as an obscure domestic struggle in an unimportant country of no wider relevance to the world. The crackle of machinegun fire in Mogadishu, the regular thwump of mortars, the ground-shaking shelling by Amisom tanks and the sporadic suicide attacks by delusional youths represent the frontline in the international fight against al-Qaeda.’

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely