Twenty-four contributions on matters dealing with Byzantine and Oriental lands, people, and cultures through different perspectives, including history, maritime trade, documents, travelers, and art. These essays trace the history of the relations between the Greeks and the peoples of the Middle East from Late Antiquity up to the seventeenth century.

A detailed study of Byzantine Africa and its conquest by the Arabs beginning in 641/642. Professor Christides assesses the political situation on the eve of the first Arab raid, the raids themselves and the sources available for studying them, as well as the causes and consequences of the Byzantine loss of North Africa and the integration of Arabic and Islamic cultures. The study focuses primarily on the regions of Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan (roughly modern-day Libya).