In just over a hundred years-from the death of Muhammad in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750-the followers of the Prophet swept across the whole of the Middle East, North Africa, and Spain. Their armies threatened states as far afield as the Franks in Western Europe and the Tang E[...]
Long before Muhammed preached the religion of Islam, the inhabitants of his native Arabia had played an important role in world history as both merchants and warriors
Arabia and the Arabs provides the only up-to-date, one-volume survey of the region and its peoples, from prehistory to the coming [...]