Author: BBC Radio 4

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Start the Week - Sara Khan: The Battle within Islam

On Start the Week Tom Sutcliffe discusses what Islam means in the modern world. Graeme Wood has spent his career getting to know Islamist fundamentalists to try to understand the apocalyptic ideology and theology at the heart of the so-called Islamic State. Sara Khan campaigns to reclaim her faith from extremism, while Ziauddin Sardar argues that Islam demands reason and critical inquiry from its believers. Loretta Napoleoni 'follows the money' to uncover the millions made by those exploiting the destabilisation of Syria and Iraq and the rise of ISIS. Producer: Katy Hickman

Photo: Sara Khan Credit: Joe McGorty.

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Start the Week - Chibundu Onuzo and Martin Sixsmith on corruption and family drama

Andrew Marr talks to the best-selling author Martin Sixsmith about his latest book which tells the story of a daughter's search for the truth about her beloved father. Secrets, corruption and political intrigue are uncovered as they travel from Britain to Pakistan. There's more political scandal and family drama from the Nigerian author Chibundu Onuzo in her latest novel, Welcome to Lagos, and the playwright Oladipo Agboluaje imagines a political revolution in 21st century Nigeria and the moral compromises made in the pursuit of power and political change. Laurence Cockcroft is the co-founder of Transparency International in the UK and in his latest work turns his attention to the flavour of corruption in the West.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS More or Less: Should we really be drinking eight glasses of water a day?

How much water should you be drinking? There?s some age-old advice that suggests you should be drinking eight ounces (230 ml) eight times a day. Some people even advise you should be drinking this on top of what you normally drink. There is lots of advice out there but how do you know when you?ve had enough or if you?re drinking too much. With help from Professor Stanley Goldfarb from the University of Pennsylvania, Wesley Stephenson finds out.

(Image: Hand holding a glass of water. Credit: Charlotte Ball/PA Wire)

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS More or Less: Does Sweden Really Have a Six Hour Day?

There have been reports that those radical Swedes have decided to reduce the working day to just six hours because, it has been claimed, productivity does not suffer. Before you all rush to the Swedish job pages this is not quite the case ? but there have been trials in Sweden to test whether you can shorten people?s working hours without having an effect on output. Tim Harford talks to our Swedish correspondent Keith Moore about what the trials have found. He also speaks to professor John Pencavel, Emeritus Professor of Economics, at Stanford University, and finds that reducing working hours may not be as radical idea as it first appears. (Photo: A business man carries a black briefcase)

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Start the Week - Maps, Music and Medieval Manuscripts

Andrew Marr visits the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College in Cambridge to meet the oldest non-archaeological artefact in England, which is the oldest surviving illustrated Latin Gospel in the world - the sixth century Gospel of Saint Augustine.

The Librarian Christopher de Hamel tells the stories of rare and beautiful manuscripts which have crisscrossed Europe for hundreds of years at the whim of power politics, religion and social change, but even now have secrets that are yet to be discovered.

The musician and broadcaster Lucie Skeaping has also turned detective in her study of the Elizabethan jig - a popular and bawdy play set to music - where only fragments of parchment and clues to the tunes remain.

Edward Brooke-Hitching uncovers the myths, lies and blunders which have plagued the cartographers of old, with his book of early maps. Mythical sea monsters, fabled mountain ranges, even phantom islands have all been written into the atlas of the world.

Producer Katy Hickman.

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Start the Week - Scientific Discoveries: from the mind to the cosmos

On Start the Week Andrew Marr looks back at lost heroes of science, and forward to cutting-edge experiments. Saiful Islam, Professor of Materials Chemistry, recreates Michael Faraday's famous 19th century experiments for the Royal Institution's Christmas lectures before exploring the latest materials being invented to boost clean energy. More Christmas fare as Brian Cox attempts to explain the birth of the entire universe with music, dance and comedy. Andrea Wulf celebrates the Victorian naturalist, geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, whose name although mostly forgotten lives on through his research - from the Humboldt Current to Humboldt penguins. Michael Lewis has turned his attention from the financial crisis and his bestselling Liar's Poker and The Big Short to the birth of the Nobel-prize winning theory of behavioural economics, and the remarkable scientific partnership at its heart. Producer: Katy Hickman.