A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity

This book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the work takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook thus provides a broad history of a civilization remarkable for both its unity and diversity.

After setting the scene in the Middle East of late antiquity, the book depicts the rise of Islam as one of the great black swan events of history. It continues with the spectacular rise of the Caliphate, an empire that by the time it broke up had nurtured the formation of a new civilization. The book then goes on to cover the diverse histories of all the major regions of the Muslim world, providing a wide-ranging account of the major military, political, and cultural developments that accompanied the eastward and westward spread of Islam from the Middle East to the shores of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

At the same time, A History of the Muslim World deploys numerous quotations deriving from primary sources. These expose the reader to a variety of voices from the Muslim past, and what they have to say can be acutely intelligent and insightful.