Commander of the Faithful
Commander of the Faithful is the long-awaited biography of Emir Abd el-Kader who led the resistance to the French colonization of Algeria in the mid 1800s. When he died in 1883 his nobility of character had won the heart of the French nation. His fame spread worldwide and the New York Times hailed him as ‘one of the few great men of the century.
John Kiser of Sperryville, VA
John Kiser is the author of the award-winning (French Siloe Prize) The Monks of Tibhirine: Faith, Love and Terror in Algeria (2003) which was subsequently made into the acclaimed film Of Monks and Men; Communist Entrepreneurs, Unknown Innovators in the Global Economy; and Stefan Zweig: Death of a Modern Man. A former international technology broker, he has an MA from Columbia University in European History and an MBA from the University of Chicago. His articles have appeared in Foreign Policy Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He lives in Sperryville, Virginia.
- President Lincoln honored Abd el-Kader as a great humanitarian for saving thousands of Christian lives in 1860.
- The emir's regulations for the treatment of his prisoners were a Koranically correct forerunner of the Geneva Convention.
- During the last twenty years of his life, the emir became a spiritual bridge between the European and Muslim worlds, and upon his death in 1883, the New York Times hailed him as “ one of the few great men of the century.”
- Social media.
- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical (BIO006000)
- RELIGION / Islam/ Sufi (REL090000)
- HISTORY / Africa/ North (HIS001030)
