Two Stops Past Siberia

Hugh Kennedy’s history, The Great Arab Conquests, details the military campaigns of the Muslim armies in the first century after the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632 AD. Over the course of the book, we see the Arabs emerge from the Arabian Peninsula and build a Muslim empire from Spain to Central Asia.

Mr. Kennedy makes clear that the sources he draws on are largely incomplete and often mythical in tone. Furthermore, he justifies his use of these sources, saying that they can provide us with the tone of the period and the opinions of the ancient authors, regardless of their factuality. When there are corresponding histories from sources other than Muslim historians, such as Catholic monks, Mr. Kennedy makes a point of citing them.

The nature of the sources, however, does give Mr. Kennedy’s text a curious focus: where there is plenty of discussion of dates, army building and troop movements, we get a very slim glimpse as to the way that the Muslim armies actually went about winning their battles. He makes it clear that this information is similarly absent in his sources, and instead goes right on to explaining how booty was distributed among the troops. Furthermore, the history is very specific to the conquests, as the title suggests; other facts historically relevant to the empire are kept to a minimum. The transition between reigning caliphs, for example, or growth of Islam as a religion are paid mention largely in their relationship to the military campaigns of the time alone, and not for their own accord.

The histories themselves give a unique glimpse into the lands that Islam currently occupies from before this time. This includes a discussion of early rifts in the Catholic Church, notably between the sects supported by Constantinople, and the Coptics prevalent in Iraq and Syria. Furthermore, the author details how much of the conquests were successful largely thanks to a local vacuum of power: these conquests came at the heels of two devastating wars between the previous powers, the Byzantine Romans and the Sasanian Persians.

The reader interested in Central Asia (referred to as Transoxania in the text) will find the two chapters devoted to its conquest a curious, if slim account. These sections detail the differences between the largely Iranian cities like Samarqand versus the Turkic countryside. There is very little discussion of the preexisting religion, except for a single epigraph that refers to this as a land where, “the people worship their kings as gods.” Central Asia is noted as the only area where Muslim armies encountered serious resistance.

Overall, the book is offers a complete discussion on a very specific topic, specific both in its scope, and its potential audience. Readers curious about this period and part of the world will find it illuminating. Those uninterested will likely be bored to tears.

To those who will like this, you know who you are.