Dive Into In The Shadow Of The Sword: The Birth Of Islam And The Rise Of The Global Arab Empire Penned By Tom Holland Formatted As Brochure

one was a bit harder for me to get into compared to The Forge of Christendom, but I still liked it! I think its a unique approach at least of books Ive read or talks Ive listened to at exploring the beginning of Islam.
Honestly I didnt realize how little we know about the early years of Islam But long before Holland gets to that, he sets the stage of what was going on in Rome/Byzantium, Persia, and Arabia leading up to the beginning of Islam, which was really interesting.
If I understand it correctly, Hollands goal is to show Islam has having sort of evolved into being rather than exploding onto the scene as something radically different.
He shows how many much of Islam is a rather hodgepodge grouping of pieces from other faiths notably Christianity amp Judaism, At the end of the day, I think this book sort of raised more questions than provided answers when it comes to the earliest roots of Islam, but then perhaps thats what we need.
I think Holland may be right in his argument that we need to radically reshift how we see the emergence of Islam, and he makes a good point that few to no Muslim scholars are willing to look at these things critically compared to Jews amp Christians.
I appreciate secular historians looking at things critically, but I also appreciate reading the insights of people critically assessing their own faith, After all, secular historians completely rule out the existence and intervention of the divine, and while I believe Islam is false, I can at least appreciate the arguments of those who believe Mohammad really did receive the Quran from Gabriel.
I dont know if that makes sense but I think its possible to look critically at ones faith while still operating within the bounds of it and not automatically ruling out things such as divine intervention.
For example, I think Christianity does hold up, but I do have to start with the assumption that God could exist and could choose to interact with humanity.
Again, some snarky comments here and there, but I really think Holland treats Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Zoroastrians alike with a good deal of fairness and an overall lack of snobbery.
A book of two halves, both equally compelling, The opening chapters give us the overview of the Roman and Persian worlds in the closing centuries of antiquity, told with Tom Holland's usual flamboyant narrative style which few history writers can match.
It seemlessly blends big picture analysis with fascinating detail to give a highly enjoyable romp through the period, The conventional history of Islam's origins is laid out in similar style along with a valuable insight into the Jewish experience of this turbulent time.

We then move into the more critical second half of the book which reexamines and asks probing questions about the existant sources for the beginnings of Islam.
It is an analysis which in the author's own words leaves more questions than answers and if the alternative view of Islam's origins is a little unconvincing, it is nevertheless plausible.
The final chapters which chart the first century of Islam under the Umayyad Caliphs give a great insight into the battle for the spirtual and political legacy of the Prophet between those who sought to rule in his name.

All in all a stonking read, At first glance, this is just a new history of the start of Islam, and how the Arabs came to dominate such a large area, one of those parts of history that often defies analysis.
And Holland loops this book around that subject a couple of times just to show how and why this is traditionally a tough subject to tackle.


There's a fair amount of myth surrounding the foundation of Islam, And it's so well presented that even when an outsider looks at it, and starts wondering just how likely some of it is, the weight of evidence comes down on the side of that myth.
General Western views of this period aren't much more critical of the story than Islamic scholars are that's an amazing intellectual achievement right there.


At the same time, this also is a marker of the change from late Antiquity, where Middle East is dominated by the superpowers of Rome /Byzantium and Sassanid Persia, to the early Medieval period where its the Christian world vs the Islamic one.
Looking at ADand AD, things look very different, and the source of changes seems invisible in AD,

Of course, the Middle East was traditionally a bubbling cauldron of different religious beliefs, Things like the Dead Sea Scrolls are the merest tip of the iceberg of religious debate a snapshot of one place and time, Other sources talk of various other cults, and groups, that were obviously stealing the better ideas from each other, I really wish Holland had gone into that a bit more, and maybe tried to trace some of the currents of religious thought in the area, the groups that were slowly pushed to the fringes by the statebacked power of Christianity and Zoroastrianism.
He goes into some, and lists a few oddities from theth andth Centuries, Oddities that sound really familiar in a religion that was supposed to spring fullformed from the mouth of a person touched by God,

And looking into the history of the Quran and the haddith, things don't look so clear, Despite the claims made, the earliest known examples, and the first biography of Mohammad, which codifies a lot of this story, date to nearly two centuries after his life.
Now, these are based on earlier versions, but there's a fair amount of drift possible in that time, and the early history of the Quran is not looking any clearer that the early history of the Gospels.
Holland doesn't go into it, but the later parts shows that there is something about the birth of a religion, possibly something forever unknowable.
The codified institutions come later events swept people along, caused a passionate belief, . . that doesn't get written down in all the excitement,

After that, a closer look at what was actually going on with Rome and the Sassanians helps bring things into focus, The Islamic irruption into the world stage happened at the end of a long conflict between Rome and Persia, and Holland not only points out how this had drained available manpower on both sides, but he goes into a plague that swept through the region just recently, and like the better known Black Death, it was devastating to world population as a whole.
He then goes into the current generation of Arab mercenaries, whose sources of money are drying up,

And from there, the rest of the book is a familiar story, but with the emphases changed, He posits, from what is in the Quran, and a few other places, that Mohamed, and his closest companions, were far more aware of the Roman world than is generally understood, and move on to the struggle to define just what had happened over the next few generations, as events of thes slipped out of memory, and into history.


Its a wellwritten book all the way through, and really shakes up the normal perception of this period, I'd say this is among the top 'must reads' for anyone interested in this part of history, Parts of it are a bit vague, and pro tem, but it does reference much more current research than you normally get to hear about.
I expected much better from Tom Holland!

I don't have enough background in history to comment upon the exact coloring of the text but I got the feeling that the author was not entirely objective in the historical account.
I found that the author was too critical of the actions of Muslims, E. g. the raids launched by the vengeful Muslims were as savage and remorseless as they had ever been, slicing so deep into Roman territory that inan Arab army even managed briefly to put Nicaea under siege.


While on the other hand, there is a subtle, yet evident and pervasive, sense of praise of the actions of the Roman Empire.
E. g. "Four long years Heraclius would be gone from Constantinople: a period of absence that would culminate in one of the most stunning comebacks ever recorded in military history.
.

He Heraclius descended from the mountains of Media, and scythed a bloody course across the open mudflats of Mesopotamia, leaving canals, roads and villages polluted with corpses.
Finally, in December, he began to target Khusrows own palaces, Their overseers were taken captive the animals in the royal parks, from ostriches to tigers, barbecued and fed to his soldiers the silks, and carpets, and bags of spices in the treasuries put to the torch.
“Let us quench the fire before it consumes everything,”Heraclius wrote to his great rivalbut already, even as he sent the letter, the flames lit by his soldiers were to be seen from the walls of a terrified Ctesiphon.
"

Raids by Muslims are "vengeful and savage" while those by Romans Christians are "stunning military comebacks", These are but a few examples that hint a more biased account than one would come to expect from a renowned historian,

The author is quick to denounce the claimed miracles of Islam or any other nonChristian faith in the book, However, the story of the seven Christian sleepers is presented in a different light, The author does not claim the story to be true, but just presents the story as a popularly known fact in those times, Clear bias would have come out if the author would have provided clear comments supporting the story, There is a more implicit bias here, By not critiquing the story, the author gives an impression of accepting the story to be true, Actions of the Romans during the time of Decius are described as "persecution of the Church had attained a veritable peak of savagery" while the Church's own actions are treated in more sympathetic terms "The notion that there existed such a thing as “paganism” gave to Christians what any great army of conquest marching into enemy territory, trusting to its size and its superior firepower, will always looks to find: a single body of adversaries that could be pinned down, brought to battle, and given a decisive knockout blow.
"

To mimic the author's tone in the book Can we then treat this as a reliable account of the origins of Islam Apart from the obvious flaws of spending too much time in setting the stage than in actual perusal of early years of Islam the real fault of the book lies in the biased presentation of the stories of different faiths.
The book fails, not due to the facts that it purports to present, but due to the questionable intentions of writing the book,






This is an illuminating, wellresearched, and historicallyfascinating book on the empires and religions of the neareast and Mediterranean in Late Antiquity.
There is a wealth of information on the Romans/Byzantines, the Persians, and the Jews, but the main focus is, of course, the foundation, birth and progression of Islam and the Umayyad Caliphate.


Shadow is a gem of 'popular history' for people, like me, who are really interested in this period, I studied Byzantine history as I, but not Tom Holland, call it in university and am endlessly fascinated by the Byzantines and the world around them.
I also always wanted to know more about the Persians of Late Antiquity and just how the Arabs became Muslims and Islam spread and developed, from more than military perspectives.
This book does not disappoint in those areas, Holland's explanation for the rise of Islam, built on the backs of preceding religions and empires and heavily influenced by them is fascinating and deeplyresearched.
Likewise, his delving into the nittygritty of the Quran and its relation to Hadiths, and the forging of Islamic law and religion by lawyers and bureaucrats versus the aspirations and actions of worldly autocrats is very interesting, albeit lengthy.
I learned that Islam, like pretty much everything, did not just appear out of a void, and that the history of its early empires was just as full of infighting, religious debate, good and bad leaders, controversy, betrayal, disaster and blind luck just as full as the empires and religions around and before it.


Shadow, despite being a 'popular history', and despite the wonders it conveys, may not hold everyone in its sway, It certainly lost my attention various times,

Holland has crafted a wellresearched tome here and a tome much closer to an academic text than anything 'popular' and wellpaced, This book can drag on, and the chapterspanning deep forays into the minutiae of religious debate, not to mention the constant use of 'And yet.
. . ' 'None of which, of course, . . ' and other such monotonehistoryprofessor phrases are bound to cause less dedicated or interested readers to fall unconscious, the overthick paperback slipping from their grasp and hitting the floor.
While exciting battles and intrigue are mentioned, they are given a tiny fraction of the space that topics like possible Rabbinical views of aspects of Islamic thought are.


In sum, if you are someone patient, quite interested in history and interested in this period of history, or specifically in Islam, Persia, Judaism, or Byzantium probably in that order, this could be the book for you.


.Stars




Notes and quotes of note, by my vote


Quote from Eusebius, Introduction: "I shall include in my narrative only those things by which first we ourselves, then later generations, may benefit.
"

Intro: Himyar a Jewish kingdom in modern Yemen that fell to Ethiopian Christians encouraged by Byzantine agents in thes AD

Pg, Holland notes that LateAntiquity is important because: "The main Monotheistic religions and interpretations of religion itself were crafted and reconstructed by LA scholars.
"
He also notes that religion and historical fact were intertwined and inseperable

Pg: There are almost no reliable sources for the founding and early centuries of Islam

Pg: Partial book thesis: ".
. . theth century Caliphate the most enduring, last, and climactic empire of antiquity, . . " So, in essence Holland argues that the Umayad Caliphate at least represented the final ancient world empire Perhaps because of how much it owed to ancient empires, cultures, religions etc He doesn't really finish the book on this note.


Pgss or so, interesting rambling about Persians and Parthians, I didn't know much about the Sasanian Persians before this book, Holland teaches that ancient Parthian dynasts still held considerable power during Sasanian and even later into the Muslim conquest days, and Persian 'Shahansha's were forced to treat them with respect.


Pg: Iran 'Aryan'

Pg: 'Drug' 'the lie', In Zoroastrian religion, there is a constant war of good vs evil, truth vs lie, and in the end everything will cataclysmically finish, like Ragnarok, The Flood, etc.


Jews were everywhere in the Sasanian Persian empire, and they even had two important religious schools in Sura and Pumpedita, They were, compared to Rome etc, generally welltreated and sometimes rose to power though some Shahs would decide to crack down on them from time to time

Pgs: Interesting section on the founding of Constantinople emphasizing its insecurities and need to be legitimate in the face of the long pedigree of Rome.


Pgs: Nice section on the origins of Bishops, They began as recordkeepers, scribes, bureaucrats and organizers, Eventually they became abnormally holy leaders and quite powerful,

Pg: Arianism explained,

I enjoy Holland's helpful translations of important ancient words and terms

Pg: From thes AD, the 'Holy Wisdom' Haghia Sophia was all that mattered.
Justinian closed the schools of philosophy in Athens as incompatibly pagan,

Pgs: Good section on those crazy religious extremists: the stylites and monks, Their main home, before the Muslim conquest, was the deserts of Syria and Palestine,

PgsIndepth, but rambling look at Jerusalem, including its Jews, Christians, and Samaritans an interesting case of their own,

Pgs: The RomanSponsored Ghasanids and the Persiansponsored Lakhmids

Pg: Belisarius is mentioned and painted as flawed, . .

Pg: If only Justinian had stopped at North Africa and bolstered his defences in the East

Pg: THE PLAGUE, In case you didn't know, the plague that hit the Med and Near East in thes and continued to smite it decades later was a major factor in the weakening of both the Persian and Eastern Roman Empires.


Pg: The plague and new invasions of barbarians the Avars, Slavs and Lombards all lead to prophecies of doom and the end of days

Pg: Polo is Persian.
After further research, it seems it was invented by the Ancient Persians,

Pg: More insight into Heraclius' great campaign, His was a desperate, allin offensive against a seeminglytriumphant Persia, He gambled Constantinople itself, using it as bait and hoping it could hold out against a combined Persian/Avar siege, while he targeted Persian religious sites, palaces, Khusrow's prestige, and convinced the Parthian warlords backstab him.


Heraclius' victory and strategic abilities seem even more amazing than they did before, and it's even more tragic that the Arabs trounced the east soon after.
Holland does a good job of showing how they could have, except for the battles involved, which he glosses over though which seem to have little to no sources to describe them anyway.


The Arabs, longaccustomed to dealing with, working for, or raiding the 'Romans' and Persians, now had strong, competent, leaders under the uniting force of a birthing religion and they took advantage of lands absolutely decimated by years of plague and warfare to 'overcome incredible odds'.
In short, though very capable warriors and tough cookies, and although shrewd, they got really, really, really lucky so lucky with their conquests that they themselves did not believe it for a long time.


'More questions than answers' a very plodding chapter on the origins of the Quran

Pg: Manichaeans: Mani was a progressive 'prophet' who combined Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism and the leaders of all three faiths absolutely hated him and had him crushed.
He even seems to have followed some Buddhist principles,

Somewhere in here Mazdak is mentioned too, He was a progressive Zoroastrian priest who became a religious activist and 'protosocialist' who espoused communist ideals and was thus crushed,

Pg: Good quote on the survival of imperial bureaucracy, whatever the empire, Kind of like today: bureaucrats don't necessarily care which party is in power,

"Officials of the two decapitated superpowers, seasoned as they were in the arts of extortion, and eager to maintain their positions of authority, had every incentive to work hard for their new masters.
Vast and implacable, like a kraken of the deep undisturbed by storms raging across the ocean surface, the apparatus of empire still coiled its prodigious tentacles, ready to flex and squeeze its victims tightly, as it had ever done.
"

'Mosque' place of prostration

PgsAbd alMalik, in Holland's interpretation, seems to have virtually created Islam! This is crazy and I need to do more research, but, what I get from Holland is that alMalik: elevated Muhammad as his prophet, had mosques and prayers face Mecca, and built the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
He also reminted Imperial coins in Arabic instead of Greek and had Arabic become the defacto language of administration, He seemed to be the first Caliph of a united Islamic Empire,

Pgs: Greek Fire saves Constantinople from the Arabs and gives George R, R. Martin a plot for the siege of King's Landing by Stannis

,