Originally published: London : Little, Brown, 2012.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 481-507) and index.

The remarkable story of an imperial civilization that endures as perhaps the only one to have survived from antiquity into the present day. No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story of manifest destiny that is dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere; yet by 632, when the Prophet Muhammad is supposed to have died, all the tribes of the Arabian peninsula had come to acknowledge the authority of his teachings. During the next two hundred years, they carved out a stupefyingly vast dominion, overcoming seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day.