Islamic literature is literature written manuscripts with an Islamic perspective, in any language.

The most well known fiction from the Islamic world was The Book of One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), which was a compilation of many earlier folk tales told by the Persian Queen Scheherazade. The epic took form in the 10th century and reached its final form by the 14th century; the number and type of tales have varied from one manuscript to another. All Arabian fantasy tales were often called "Arabian Nights" when translated into English, regardless of whether they appeared in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights, in any version, and a number of tales are known in Europe as "Arabian Nights" despite existing in no Arabic manuscript.

This epic has been influential in the West since it was translated in the 18th century, first by Antoine Galland. Many imitations were written, especially in France.

Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran, is a mythical and heroic retelling of Persian history. Amir Arsalan was also a popular mythical Persian story, which has influenced some modern works of fantasy fiction, such as The Heroic Legend of Arslan.

Mona Siddiqui OBE (born 1963) is a British Muslim academic. She is Professor of Islamic Studies and Public Understanding at the University of Glasgow, as well as the Director of its Centre for the Study of Islam, and is a member of the Commission on Scottish Devolution.

She is also a regular contributor to Thought for the Day and Sunday on BBC Radio 4, and to The Times, The Scotsman, The Guardian, Sunday Herald and (since February 2007, as its first regular Muslim columnist) The Tablet.

Siddiqui was born in Karachi, Pakistan in 1963. Her parents were religious and the family prayed and read the Qur'an together. The family moved from Pakistan to England in 1968. Her father was a psychiatrist and moved to England to carry out post-graduate work in Cambridge, and his work eventually took the family to Huddersfield when he gained a substantive job there. The family lived in four successive houses in Huddersfield, moving partly because the family expanded from four to six, and finally into a 1930s detached house in a relatively prosperous area near the town centre. The household was very literary and there were many books in the house. Siddiqui became closest to her sister about seven years younger than herself. Urdu was generally spoken at home, and so the children became bilingual. Her father also spoke Arabic and worked in Saudi Arabia for a few years, where he was visited by Siddiqui at the age of about 18 years together with her sister.