Arabs : a 3,000-year history of peoples, tribes and empires /
Arabs, a three thousand year history of peoples, tribes and empires
Tim Mackintosh-Smith.
- xxvi, 630 pages : color illustrations, maps ; 24 cm
Includes bibliographical references (pages 602-608) and index.
Foreword : the wheel and the hourglass -- Introduction : gathering the word -- Emergence : 900 BC- AD 600 -- Revolution: 600-630 -- Dominance : 630-900 -- Decline : 900-1350 -- Eclipse : 1350-1800 -- Emergence : 1800-now -- Afterword : in the station of history -- Chronology. Foreword: The wheel and the hourglass -- Introduction: Gathering the word -- Emergence: 900 BC-AD 600. Voices from the wilderness: earliest Arabs -- Peoples and tribes: Sabaeans, Nabataeans, and Nomads -- Scattered far and wide: the changing grammar of history -- On the edge of greatness: the days of the Arabs -- Revolution: 600-630. Revelation, revolution: Muhammad and the Qur'an -- God and Caesar: the state of Medina -- Dominance: 630-900. Crescaders: openings-up -- The kingdom of Damascus: Umayyad rule -- The empire of Baghdad: Abbasid sovereignty -- Decline: 900-1350. Counter-cultures, counter-caliphs: the empire breaks up -- The genius in the bottle: the hordes close in -- Eclipse: 1350-1800. Masters of the monsoon: Arabs around the Indian Ocean -- Re-emergence: 1800-Now. Identity rediscovered: awakenings --The age of hope: Nasserism, Ba'thism, liberation, oil -- The age of disappointment: autocrats, Islamocrats, Anacharchs -- Afterword: In the station of history.
This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia. Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments-from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad's use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic-have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today's politically fractured post-Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.