The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In Kindle Edition

Kennedy writes a book that focuses on the conquest of different regions, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Sogdiana, Transoxiana, Egypt, North Africa, Spain, and the war at sea, during the first 120 years or so of Muslim expansion out of Arabia. He talks about the leaders of the armies that led the campaigns, and the struggles that the armies faced in each area. He also mentions the local population and the type of resistance they put up, if any, and talks about how things changed for those areas once the Muslims moved in. Kennedy does not however go into details about what was happening back in the area of the Arab homeland, being very sparse over any sort of political changes occurring, and mentioning specific rulers only when a change in those rulers caused a particular governor to be recalled or replaced. Kennedy also does not go into specific details about Islamic religion or how that may have affected the conquests.

To me, this book seems more like a companion book for someone who is already familiar with Muhammad, what he preached, his early campaigns, and the inner politics of early Islamic rule, because all of those things, which to me seem essential to a better understanding of the conquests, are absent here.

In true academic fashion, Kennedy spends so much time questioning his source material, that it leads the reader to believe that we know nothing at all about this topic, and that the history as it is written is mostly made up by Muslims of later generations who are trying to fill in the gaps in their knowledge about their forebears.

The author also makes it clear in several parts of the book that in his opinion the success of the conquests had to do more with circumstance than in any ability or prowess of the Islamic soldiers or armies, mentioning more than once that if Muhammad had been born seventy years earlier, that we never would have heard of Islam and that the Arabs would have been confined to the desert. Instead, due to plague, political vacuum in the conquered areas, lack of military or governmental structures in place, weakness of both the Byzantine and Sassanid empires due to years of warfare, and similar factors, the Arab armies were able to easily sweep through and conquer these areas with little or no resistance. This viewpoint, while having perhaps some merit, disregards the military achievements of the Arabs, and downplays the role that the new religion played in spurring these armies forward.

A great number of people would benefit from a better understanding of the history of the Arabic/Islamic conquests, especially those people who think that ISIS represents a return to the essential nature of Islam. This book is well regarded for good reason, it offers a sophisticated account based on primary sources in various eastern & western languages, it is clearly written and it is devoid of the jargon that infects much contemporary history. My only minor criticism is that In some places it offers an overly positive account and in doing so is part of a general trend in which western historians have switched from offering a too positive account of western history/ too negative account of Islamic history to the reverse.

The Great Arab Conquests began well and ended well, unfortunately there were large swaths of the body that dragged on with menial useless information. Honestly, there were portions that were very hard to get through when the author was simply regurgitating old stories. The authors choice in the spelling of names, both people and places, made reading slightly more difficult as well. Overall this book could have been cleaned up (shortened) and presented in a much more reader friendly manner. This is the first book I've read from this author. If this is his typical manner of presentation I will shy from reading any other of his books.

Hugh Kennedy is one of my favorite historians. His prose is extremely readable, to the point it really doesn't feel like a History book. His voice offers continuous insight, which turns the reader into an analyst of its own, considering the value of different sources for what they are worth (remarkable concept, his study of "collective memory" of muslims). The internal structure of the book is very clean, with robust yet not too overwhelming chapters for each of the geographical areas of conquest.
If you are looking for a entry point into the Arab early conquests, I strongly suggest this book. In other books he's also covered the Khalifat al-Rashidun, the four first caliphs of Islam, the life of the Prophet himself and the splendour of the Abbasid court in Baghdad. Truly remarkable historian.