In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

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In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire Page 63

by Tom Holland


  Iraq under the Abbasids remained what it had been under the Sasanians: a prodigiously wealthy land of rivers and canals. The Tigris is on the right-hand side of the map and flows southwards from the bottom of the page towards Baghdad, the greatest and most cultured city in the world. (Bridgeman/Egyptian National Library, Cairo)

  About the Author

  Historian Tom Holland is the author of the works of history Rubicon, Persian Fire, and The Forge of Christendom. He reviews regularly for the TLS, and has adapted Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio. Rubicon was short-listed for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the 2004 Hessell-Tiltman Prize for History, and Persian Fire won the Anglo-Hellenic League’s 2006 Runciman Award.

  Also by Tom Holland

  The Forge of Christendom:

  The End of Days and the Epic Rise of the West

  Rubicon:

  The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic

  Persian Fire:

  The First World Empire and the Battle for the West

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  List of Maps

  Epigraph

  I INTRODUCTION

  1 KNOWN UNKNOWNS

  II JAHILIYYA

  2 IRANSHAHR

  3 NEW ROME

  4 THE CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM

  5 COUNTDOWN TO APOCALYPSE

  III HIJRA

  6 MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS

  7 THE FORGING OF ISLAM

  ENVOI: PLUS ÇA CHANGE?

  Timeline

  Dramatis Personae

  Glossary

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Illustrations

  About the Author

  Also by Tom Holland

 

 

 


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