Described by E. M. Forster as "the only contemporary English novelist who understands the Nearer East," Marmaduke Pickthall's adult life defied his upbringing. The son of an English country parson, as a young man he travelled through Syria and Palestine, and on his return to England penned Saïd the Fisherman, a novel praised by D. H. Lawrence and H. G. Wells. His unconventional role in the First World War and his years in India, where he ultimately translated Islam's holiest text, meant he was a forgotten figure in the land of his birth.