The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In

This history of Arabia's overpowering cultural expansion across the globe is "a brisk account of Islam's momentous first century" (New York Times).

Today's Arab world was created at breathtaking speed. In just over one hundred years following the death of Mohammed in 632, Arabs had subjugated a territory with an east-west expanse greater than the Roman Empire, and they did it in about one-half the time. By the mid-eighth century, Arab armies had conquered the thousand-year-old Persian Empire...