The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In forthrightly popular style, Kennedy fascinatingly chronicles the expansion of Islam from the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 to the beginning of the Abbasid Caliphate in 750 (the latter the subject of Kennedy's When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World, 2005). Relating the story, however, requires care since most sources date, as Kennedy cautions, from 150 to 250 years after the conquests they purport to describe. Kennedy's warnings engage interest as he provides the contexts of late antiquity, which lent advantage to the new religion sweeping out of Arabia. Crucially, Near East populations had been devastated by plague and by a war between Islam's political enemies: the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire of Persia. Kennedy's attention to these factors deepens his interpretations of the Islamic chronicles, which he describes as frustratingly vague on details of battles but strangely attentive to the division of booty. Explaining the élan that propelled Islam so far, so fast, and so permanently, Kennedy vividly introduces the formative establishment of Islam. Taylor, Gilbert

Review

"Hugh Kennedy describes and convincingly analyzes the astonishing story of how the Arabs took over the Middle East." -- Books & Culture, November/December 2007

"A brisk account of Islam's momentous first century." -- New York Tiimes Book Review, Editor's Choice

"An extremely readable work...in the flowing narrative style for which [Kennedy] has become known...An extremely valuable addition to the discipline...Highly recommended." -- Choice

"By painstakingly reconstructing the series of Arab conquests, Mr. Kennedy paints a picture strikingly at odds with the popular clichés...Mr. Kennedy tells a remarkable tale with skill and authority." -- The Economist

"Send a copy to the frat boys in the State Department...in the hope that they might remember the past so the rest of us aren't condemned to repeat it." -- San Diego Union-Tribune

"The Bush administration might have given all the Annapolis participants a swag bag--the mix of goodies Hollywood presenters get at the Oscars--packed with a copy...of The Great Arab Conquests...That would guarantee heated but honest future negotiations...State[s] historical truths most nonexperts, general readers and politicians ignore. The key truth laid out in fine narrative style by Kennedy...is that the Islamic and Arabic character of every Mideast nation outside of present-day Saudi Arabia is the blunt result of military conquest." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"This excellent guide to the campaigns initiated by Mohammed is highly relevant today...Not least, the account helps explain many of the current borders of the Muslim world. It also provides the early context for religious ideas that continue to motivate believers...A highly-readable account of remote events that still have a striking relevance for the shape of our modern world." -- Financial Times

"Though the scope of the book appears slightly daunting, Kennedy surprises in giving unexpected texture and depth to these large-scale religious, military and political events...An eminently readable history of one of the most significant periods in world history...A dynamic, well-written account of the spread of Islam." -- Charleston Post and Courier

"[An] anecdote-rich narrative...A little-known history lucidly told, with episodes that might have come out of today's headlines." -- Kirkus Reviews

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press (September 10, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306815850
• ISBN-13: 978-0306815850
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #235,957 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, and true to its sources, September 5, 2007

By	Mark O'Neill "International Man of Mystery" (Boston) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read a pre-release copy of this book prior to a trip through some of the Gulf states. My knowledge of the spread of Islam had been limited to a short section of my secondary school history course, where it was mixed up with the fall of the Byzantine empire. It is easy to imagine that countries like Syria were always Islamic, and to forget about the swift process which converted them (from Christianity, in the case of Syria).

I found this book to be extremely readable. The fluency of the writing matched the content, the amazing swiftness of the Muslim conquests.

The author cites his sources often. I liked the fact that it felt like reading the original sources. I never felt it was just one author's opinion. The book is a nice mix of high-level accounts of battles and strategy, plus an insight into the mindset of the original Muslim soldiers, who were agile and lightly armoured, and not afraid to withdraw to fight another day. One thing which it doesn't do is go into great detail on Mohammed himself, but plenty of other books do that already.

Highly recommended.

34 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Early Arab Military Campaigns, November 5, 2007

By	Izaak VanGaalen (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

After the death of the Mohammed in 632 and up to the Battle of Poitiers in 732, Arab Muslim armies conquered a swath of land that extended from Spain and Portugal in the West to what is now Afghanistan and Pakistan in the East. Our traditional understanding of these events is that a group Muslim fanatics were hell-bent (pardon the expression) on proselytizing others to their faith. Hugh Kennedy, professor of history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, tells us in this excellent and well-written book that there were more mundane reasons for this sudden expansion of the realm: namely, the quest for the spoils of war. Religious conversion was not yet a factor; that would come two to three hundred years later.

This story is told in chronological as well as geographical order, moving outward from Mecca and Medina. Kennedy reminds us that many of his sources are unreliable and unclear since they were written by the victors. But he has done a masterful job putting it together, making use also of the records of the conquered. His knowledge of Arabic is evident throughout this book.

How did a group of disorganized Bedouins with no military weapons or martial tradition create such a large empire? In the beginning, Kennedy tells us, it was due mainly to the weakness and decline of the immediate surrounding empires. Byzantium, which controlled Syria and Palestine, and Sassanid Persia, which controlled what is now Iraq and Iran, had exhausted themselves fighting each other. When the Arab armies arrived they were met with little resistance.

Their mode of conquest was simple and time-honored. First they defeated the army, then they beseiged the population centers giving them a choice of paying tribute and allegiance or facing death. Conquered peoples invariably chose the former. Arab administrators wisely left existing structures and traditions in place. They established a very tolerant and multicultural empire. ( For more on empires and tolerance read Amy Chua's Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--and Why They Fall.) They were tolerant of Christianity in the West as well as Hinduism in the East. During the 100 year period covered in this book, Egypt remained Coptic-speaking and Christian, and Persia remained Pahlavi-speaking and Zoroastrian. It was not until much later that the Arabic language and Muslim faith took hold.

The conquests were driven by the quest for booty to satisfy the growing Arab-controlled armies. Since Muslims were forbidden to fight each other, according to Kennedy, the constantly sought out new lands and peoples to conquer.

This may throw some light on the present condition of the Middle East. Now we know that Muslims do fight each other and that Islam in its current form in Iran and Saudi Arabia has very little tolerance of other faiths. During the time period covered in this book, Kennedy does not say much about inter-Muslim and inter-Arab conflicts, apparently there weren't many. There may have been greater harmony within during a time of tolerance of outside cultures. For those Arabs today who mourn the loss of empire and feel humiliation and inferiority at the hands of the West, they would do well to study the lessons of this book. Tolerance of other cultures and religions - not rigidity and exclusion - is the key to greatness and power.

30 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Alas, too many trees and not enough forest, January 24, 2008

By	Graham (Palo Alto, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

The great Arab conquests are a potentially fascinating topic. But unfortunately in Kennedy's account the broad overall picture becomes lost in an overly detailed narrative of individual campaigns and battles.

As Kennedy explains, one of the problems facing scholars is the narrowness of the sources. These were typically written or collected long after the events they portray and were often intended to score political points or to justify hereditary claims to special privileges. Thus the sources tend to provide long lists of heroic Arab combatants and to use stock anecdotes to emphasize what later generations saw as their ancestors' sturdy virtues, while being distressingly vague on the broader context of the battles. Unfortunately, despite noting these weaknesses, Kennedy often seems to repeat them, by giving many detailed accounts of long series of battles on various frontiers.

What I found lacking in most of the book was a wider perspective on what was happening within an expanding Islam. What was happening in Mecca and Medina? How was the Caliphate evolving? How was the expansion helped or hindered as the center stabilized? What were the long term political reactions in Byzantium or Persia to the emerging threat? Alas, Kennedy is largely silent on these topics. The events on the frontiers are covered in great detail, but there are only fleeting side references to events such as a change in Caliphate dynasties.

There are two main exceptions to this frontier focus. In the introductory chapters and in a short conclusion chapter, Kennedy reflects both on the context for the conquests and on how they were perceived by later Islamic generations. For example he highlights the greatly weakened state of the Byzantine empire in Syria and Egypt after the debilitating Persian wars and observes how religious schisms within Byzantium caused many Eastern Christians to welcome invading Muslims. These sections are valuable and I wish Prof. Kennedy had spent more time on such topics and less on individual battles.

It may be that for readers who are already familiar with early Islamic history, this focus on the frontier battles will fill a gap. However, as a more general reader, I found it distinctly slow going. I felt I was seeing too many frontier details without enough broader context.