Talk about your clash of civilizations. How is it, wonders Kennedy
(When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam's
Greatest Dynasty, 2005, etc), that a comparative handful of desert
herdsmen could conquer much of the known world and topple several
venerable empires in the bargain?In 632 CE, when Muhammad died,
Islam was confined to a few parts of the Arabian Peninsula. The
dominant power in the region was the Byzantine Empire, with Greek
the lingua franca of Egypt and the Holy Land; in much of the Middle
East, Arabic was unknown. Yet, notes Kennedy, something unexpected
happened; within the next century, Arabic-speaking armies, most
smaller than 20,000 men, emerged from the Arabian desert and took
down states from Portugal to Pakistan. The Muslim doctrine of jihad
fit nicely with this unprecedented expansion, but it seems clear
from Kennedy's anecdote-rich narrative that there was more to it
than all that; the possibility of leaving the desert for more
congenial, better-watered climes beckoned, and so did the prospect
for wealth and booty figure. One telling tale, in that regard,
concerns a man who tried to enlist, was warned that he might be
martyred as a holy warrior and tried to back out - until he dreamed
that should he join he would become rich, "which proved more
enticing than the spiritual benefits." But the larger explanation
for success, as Kennedy observes, is that the Arab armies were just
that - armies: "The early Muslim conquests were not achieved by a
migration of Bedouin tribesmen with their families, tents and
flocks in the way that the Saljuk Turks entered the Middle East in
the eleventh century," he writes. "They were achieved by fighting
men under orders." Blend discipline, training and ideology with
hunger, set all this up against ripe, decadent, even corrupt
targets, and the Arab conquest seems nearly inevitable.A
little-known history lucidly told, with episodes that might have
come out of today's headlines. (Kirkus Reviews)
Today's Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. Whereas the
Roman Empire took over 200 years to reach its fullest extent, the
Arab armies overran the whole Middle East, North Africa and Spain
within a generation. They annhilated the thousand-year-old Persian
Empire and reduced the Byzantine Empire to little more than a
city-state based around Constantinople. Within a hundred years of
the Prophet's death, Muslim armies destroyed the Visigoth kingdom
of Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees to occupy southern France. This
is the first popular English language account of this astonishing
remaking of the political and religious map of the world. Hugh
Kennedy's sweeping narrative reveals how the arab armies conquered
almost everything in their path. One of the few academic historians
with a genuine talent for story telling, he offers a compelling mix
of larger-than-life characters, battles, treachery and the clash of
civilizations.
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