The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates

The Prophet and the Age of Caliphates is an accessible guide to the history of the Near East from c.600-1050AD, the period in which Islamic society was formed. Beginning with the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islam, Hugh Kennedy goes on to explore the great Arab conquests of the seventh century and the golden age of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates when the world of Islam was politically and culturally far more developed than the West. A period of political fragmentation shattered this early unity, never to be recovered._x005F_x000D_ General readers and scholars of early Islamic history will find this book a clear, informative and readable introduction to the subject._x005F_x000D_  _x005F_x000D_