In 1990 the glamorous Princess of Wales, Lady Diana, was photographed by the UK paper the Daily Mail carrying a copy of Akbar Ahmed’s book Discovering Islam. This was just at the right time for there was a public need in the West to explain what it meant to be a Muslim in today’s world and now Akbar’s book was in the public eye. The BBC was not slow to respond to this need, so it commissioned me to produce a TV series presented by Akbar. I read his book and admired its straightforward exposition, its honesty, its organisation and its wide-ranging approach. It was the work of a teacher as well as the diplomat he then was. So began the six-part series Living Islam, and for me a two-year adventure that reshaped my view of the world.

The Flying Man is like Discovering Islam: it shows how the Golden Age of Islamic thought in Andalusia and in the heartlands of Baghdad and Cairo shaped philosophical and religious thinking in all the Abrahamic faiths, Islam, Judaism and Christianity, with results that profoundly affect our thinking today. It was Islam that led Europe out of the Dark Ages. In a slim book of one hundred or so pages this ambitious aim requires insight expressed with clarity; above all it requires a teacher who understands how to make conceptual thought accessible to the general reader. As in Discovering Islam, The Flying Man is well organised, taking us through the philosophers of the Golden Age in turn before broadening out to consider their relevance today. Then there is a chapter on modern day Islamophobia which shows what I have always admired about Akbar and that is his courage. He is not afraid to stand up to the Islamaphobes whether they come from without his religion or within.

The theme in The Flying Man that unites all the philosophers from Avicenna to Thomas Aquinas is balancing reason with revelation in an age a thousand years ago when religious belief was the norm. ‘God exists because he cannot not exist’, writes Ahmed. ‘In the phrase of Avicenna, God is the “necessary existent”. This thesis of Avicenna was picked up by Maimonides, St Thomas Aquinas and others… it is one of the key ideas in Islamic thought’.

In today’s secular, warring societies, it is Akbar’s heartfelt belief that we promote what the Andalusians called ‘La Convivencia’ or Co-existence and that we learn from the past masters. “The past masters teach us faith, and by faith, I mean the belief in man in the broadest sense, in our common humanity, and for those who seek it, faith in a higher power”.

This brings me back to our TV series Living Islam. It was broadcast by the BBC in 1992 and was well received, although I would not use the YouTube hype ‘acclaimed’. However, it was never broadcast in the USA except on a small Muslim TV channel in Los Angeles. (It is still available to watch on youtube.com) Revealing how Islam shaped the day-to-day lives of millions within the Muslim world, the ummah, and without, was not considered as relevant, or popular, as showing the threat of Islamic terrorism. Hence the TV network Discovery sold instead The Sword of Islam, another negative perception of the religion. So much for ‘La Convivencia’, Co-Existence. Akbar Ahmed’s little book is sorely needed.

Hugh Purcell is former Senior Producer for the BBC and Executive Producer of the six-part BBC TV series, "Living Islam"

All facts and information are the sole responsibility of the author