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Available
Call number
Collection
Publication
New York : Doubleday, c2012.
Description
The evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. In this exciting and sweeping history-the third in his trilogy of books on the ancient world-Tom Holland describes how the Arabs emerged to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion in a matter of decades, overcoming seemingly insuperable odds to create an imperial civilization. With profound bearing on the most consequential events of our time, Holland ties the exciting story of Islam's ascent to the crises and controversies of the present.
Media reviews
I found the book fascinating to read, and grippingly written. It is not a dry historical text but a genuinely exciting story. The author has vividly brought the ancient Eastern Roman and Persian empires back to life.... I recommend the book to everyone who wishes to learn more about that part of
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the world in that period.... I see no reasons for any Muslim to get upset about the book just because it disagrees with part of the Muslim understanding of history. Show Less
...[N]ot just a history of Islam, but rather an account of the birth and development of monotheism — an exploration of how a handful of obscure sects came to outlive the mighty empires of the ancient world and wield a massive influence over billions of people today.... Holland writes with the
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skepticism of a secular historian, but his prose is shot through with wit and empathy. The result is a portrait of a lost world that is complex, contradictory and populated by people in thrall to ideas future generations would dismiss as ridiculous. Much like our own, in other words. Show Less
Holland... is about as exciting a stylist as we have writing history today... Holland presents this account more as story than as a laying forth of the evidence, making his book not only accessible but delightful to those who will never work their way through the scholarly debates over the origins
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of Islam. By joining his account of the invention of Islam to analogous descriptions of the definition of Christian orthodoxy, the rise and fall of Zoroastrianism, and the evolution of rabbinic Judaism, Holland invites greater humility from followers of all faiths. Show Less
Mr. Holland admits that his answers are "unashamedly provisional," but he traces a broad arc that connects the rise of Islam with the religious themes that accompanied the decline of the imperial systems of Rome, Byzantium and Persia. His conclusions may be tentative, but they are convincing. His
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book is elegantly written and refreshingly free from specialist jargon. Marshaling its resources with dexterity, it is a veritable tour de force. Show Less
Holland came to his work on Islam unencumbered by any prior acquaintance with its fundamental texts or the scholarly literature.... He has written his book in a swashbuckling style that aims more to unsettle his readers than to instruct them. I have not seen a book about Arabia that is so
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irresponsible and unreliable since Kamal Salibi's The Bible Came from Arabia (1985).... The scattershot nature of Holland's investigations is particularly apparent in his breezy reference to the Qur'an manuscripts that were found in Sana'a, Yemen, in 1973.... But Holland is at his most irresponsible when he turns to the Meccan origins of Islam.... Holland's cavalier treatment of his sources, ignorance of current research and lack of linguistic and historical acumen serve to undermine his provocative narrative. Show Less
I have great respect for Holland and for his work. But the title of In the Shadow of the Sword, which contrasts so sharply with the neutral titles of his earlier books, conjures up all the demons of colonial orientalism. It is revisionist ideology masquerading as popular history. When you stop
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being dazzled by the scope and style of the book, you realise that most of Holland’s arguments crumble like dust at the merest hint of scrutiny.... I find Holland’s total dismissal of Muslim scholarship arrogant (which I know he is not), insulting (which I know he does not mean to be) and based on spurious scholarship (though his scholarship is usually sound). His message is tailor-made for a time when Islamophobia is a global fashion, and everything that is labelled “Islamic” or “Muslim” is looked upon with suspicion. Show Less
Over the past century, the Muslim tradition has been challenged by many academics and it has proven remarkably resilient in its own defence.... The Muslim narrative is biased towards its particular version of history but few scholars today would claim it was entirely fabricated. Holland would have
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done better to adopt a cautious and sensitive approach to the Arabic sources, rather than abandoning them in favour of a sensational rewriting of history. Ultimately, Holland’s work is another selective recollection of the past, carefully constructed according to his own revisionist agenda. Show Less
Holland tells a complex story, dotted with names and places leagues beyond the realm of popular recognition. Yet he makes it unmistakably his own. He is one of the most distinctive prose stylists writing history today, and he drags his tale by the ears, conjuring the half-vanished past with such
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gusto that characters and places fairly bound from the page.... In the Shadow of the Sword may reach provocative conclusions, but it is also a work of impressive sensitivity and scholarship. Show Less
This is a handsome volume, tackling an important question from a novel perspective, backed by useful notes and written in an accessible and fluid style. But, as I am sure Holland would accept, in part because of the charged nature of the material and issues on which it dwells, and in part because
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of the vast developments and arenas it attempts to encompass, it is also bound to encounter the full spectrum of critical reaction. Show Less
Elegant study of the roiling era of internecine religious rivalry and epic strife that saw the nation of Islam rise and conquer.... Smoothly composed history and fine scholarship.
This is a book of extraordinary richness. I found myself amused, diverted and enchanted by turn.... Holland keeps rigidly to the deconstructionist interpretation, indeed pushes out the boundaries with some rather wild suggestions.... I was intrigued to read these suggestions, but ultimately
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unconvinced.... Even with these slight flaws In the Shadow of the Sword remains a spell-bindingly brilliant multiple portrait of the triumph of monotheism in the ancient world. Show Less
Holland's ancient history culminates in the description of the last great conflict between Rome and Persia in the early part of the 7th century. Only then does he return to his ostensible primary subject: "the birth of Islam," which occurred shortly after this Roman-Persian conflict, and led very
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quickly to the establishment of the first great Muslim empire, "the global Arab Empire" of his subtitle.... Holland's account of pre-Muslim history is elegantly told, as one would expect from this distinguished classical historian. It will offer much pleasure and profit to the reader. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member maimonedes
If you didn't know the author, the title of this book and its cover illustration - a fallen helmet with vacant staring eye-sockets lying in the desert sand - give the impression of an epic historical novel. Distribution too; I bought a soft cover "airport edition" - a channel better known for
It is essentially an attempt to present a historical account of Mohammed and the early history of Islam, as opposed to the idealized version subsequently enshrined in the religion that was founded in the name of the prophet. In order to achieve this, the author traces the development of the three major religions of antiquity - Christianity, Judaism and the Zoroastrianism of the Sassanian Persian empire. This forms the essential context for explaining the rapid spread of Islam on the back of the Arab conquest of the ancient east early in the seventh century. He describes how some form of monotheism was by this time already pervasive in most of what we call the middle east. And this did not exclude the Arabs; thousands had moved north, where they could make a profitable living, policing the borders of both Byzantine and Sassanian empires as mercenaries, and where at the same time they were likely to have been influenced by the winds of monotheism. Crucially, he presents compelling arguments why Mecca - a thousand miles south in the middle of the Arabian Desert - could not have been the flourishing entrepot and major pre-Islamic religious center which Muslim tradition (although not the Qu'ran) would have it. Instead, he locates the place from which the prophet migrated to Medina and then returned to in triumph as somewhere on the Palestinian/Syrian border - perhaps even Mamre, where Abraham - the father of the Arabs as well as of the Jews, had pitched his tent beside a Terebinth tree. It was not until half a century after Mohammed's death, that the non-exclusive community of "believers" that he had founded was transformed into Islam, "submission" , by Abd al Malek the Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty. Just as the Byzantine emperors had felt the need to stamp out different versions of Christianity and impose an orthodoxy on all their subjects, and just as the Rabbis of the Talmud labored to define minutely every aspect of Jewish life, so the leader of the first Arab empire needed to establish a defining central orthodoxy for his huge and diverse realm. That orthodoxy was Islam, a religion exclusively for the Arab conquerors, whose holy language was Arabic, and whose geographical origins were deep in Arabia.
The book eventually achieves its objective - but the road is long and winding. Some examples: The third chapter "New Rome" - although harking back to the origins of Rome - is essentially a narrative about Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. How is it possible to get 28 pages into such a narrative before the word "Christian" occurs? Apparently - as far as the story so far is concerned - Constantine's only significant achievement was moving the seat of empire to Byzantium. Then there are pages of panegyrics about Justinian's efforts to codify Roman law, but nothing about his ecclesiastical policies or his success in recapturing the lands of the western empire overrun by the barbarians in the previous century. The next section of this chapter swoops back in time to recap the growth of Christianity, Constantine's role in its establishment as the religion of the Roman state, and eventually Justinian too. Judaism gets a similar switchback treatment; starting with the Talmudic academies in 6th century Babylon, we flash back to Edessa where Jewish and Christian identities were being fought over in the 3rd century, and finally - in a chapter entitled "The Children of Abraham", which leads with six pages on Christian monastics and pilgrims - we get a potted history of the Jews from the time of Abraham up to the "present". i.e. 6th century Palestine.
The scholarship, in as much as I am qualified to judge it, is impeccable. The voluminous chapter notes are evidence of the thoroughness of Holland's research and the comprehensiveness of his sources. His reference to the marginal role of the rabbis until the 6th century, when they firmly established themselves as the leaders of the community and teachers of Jewish Law, is an example of how his narrative reflects recent state-of-the-art scholarship. His sources on Islam seem to include the most recent critical studies by Ibn Warraq and Fred Donner and others I am not familiar with.
The problem is Tom Holland's style; you never know quite where he is going. The narrative's swerves and switchbacks occur quite stealthily; in each chapter there is always a crucial turning point, which leads to his plot objective; you find yourself doing a backward search in an effort to find out how you got to where you are. The other book of his that I have read (Millenium/ The Forge of Christendom), starts at the end of the "story" with the dramatic meeting between the German emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory at Canossa. There it worked, because in a way the whole book is about the efforts of the Catholic Church to achieve its independence from emperors. In the present book I feel it works to the detriment of the narrative. The other distraction in the present book is the way he switches from a sweeping historical perspective to minute - and often prurient - details, like the halitosis of Abd al-Malek or the sexual antics of the empress Theodora before she got religion and married Justinian. Perhaps he really is trying to appeal to an audience that doesn't normally read "real" history, and would not swallow a straightforward chronological narrative - good luck with that.
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promoting the latest books by best-selling authors. Although in its style and structure it reads like a novel - somewhat florid prose, and dramatic interruptions in the narrative to allow the reader to catch up on another part of the plot - anyone who buys the book under this expectation will soon realize that what they actually have is a hardcore history book.It is essentially an attempt to present a historical account of Mohammed and the early history of Islam, as opposed to the idealized version subsequently enshrined in the religion that was founded in the name of the prophet. In order to achieve this, the author traces the development of the three major religions of antiquity - Christianity, Judaism and the Zoroastrianism of the Sassanian Persian empire. This forms the essential context for explaining the rapid spread of Islam on the back of the Arab conquest of the ancient east early in the seventh century. He describes how some form of monotheism was by this time already pervasive in most of what we call the middle east. And this did not exclude the Arabs; thousands had moved north, where they could make a profitable living, policing the borders of both Byzantine and Sassanian empires as mercenaries, and where at the same time they were likely to have been influenced by the winds of monotheism. Crucially, he presents compelling arguments why Mecca - a thousand miles south in the middle of the Arabian Desert - could not have been the flourishing entrepot and major pre-Islamic religious center which Muslim tradition (although not the Qu'ran) would have it. Instead, he locates the place from which the prophet migrated to Medina and then returned to in triumph as somewhere on the Palestinian/Syrian border - perhaps even Mamre, where Abraham - the father of the Arabs as well as of the Jews, had pitched his tent beside a Terebinth tree. It was not until half a century after Mohammed's death, that the non-exclusive community of "believers" that he had founded was transformed into Islam, "submission" , by Abd al Malek the Caliph of the Umayyad dynasty. Just as the Byzantine emperors had felt the need to stamp out different versions of Christianity and impose an orthodoxy on all their subjects, and just as the Rabbis of the Talmud labored to define minutely every aspect of Jewish life, so the leader of the first Arab empire needed to establish a defining central orthodoxy for his huge and diverse realm. That orthodoxy was Islam, a religion exclusively for the Arab conquerors, whose holy language was Arabic, and whose geographical origins were deep in Arabia.
The book eventually achieves its objective - but the road is long and winding. Some examples: The third chapter "New Rome" - although harking back to the origins of Rome - is essentially a narrative about Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. How is it possible to get 28 pages into such a narrative before the word "Christian" occurs? Apparently - as far as the story so far is concerned - Constantine's only significant achievement was moving the seat of empire to Byzantium. Then there are pages of panegyrics about Justinian's efforts to codify Roman law, but nothing about his ecclesiastical policies or his success in recapturing the lands of the western empire overrun by the barbarians in the previous century. The next section of this chapter swoops back in time to recap the growth of Christianity, Constantine's role in its establishment as the religion of the Roman state, and eventually Justinian too. Judaism gets a similar switchback treatment; starting with the Talmudic academies in 6th century Babylon, we flash back to Edessa where Jewish and Christian identities were being fought over in the 3rd century, and finally - in a chapter entitled "The Children of Abraham", which leads with six pages on Christian monastics and pilgrims - we get a potted history of the Jews from the time of Abraham up to the "present". i.e. 6th century Palestine.
The scholarship, in as much as I am qualified to judge it, is impeccable. The voluminous chapter notes are evidence of the thoroughness of Holland's research and the comprehensiveness of his sources. His reference to the marginal role of the rabbis until the 6th century, when they firmly established themselves as the leaders of the community and teachers of Jewish Law, is an example of how his narrative reflects recent state-of-the-art scholarship. His sources on Islam seem to include the most recent critical studies by Ibn Warraq and Fred Donner and others I am not familiar with.
The problem is Tom Holland's style; you never know quite where he is going. The narrative's swerves and switchbacks occur quite stealthily; in each chapter there is always a crucial turning point, which leads to his plot objective; you find yourself doing a backward search in an effort to find out how you got to where you are. The other book of his that I have read (Millenium/ The Forge of Christendom), starts at the end of the "story" with the dramatic meeting between the German emperor Henry IV and Pope Gregory at Canossa. There it worked, because in a way the whole book is about the efforts of the Catholic Church to achieve its independence from emperors. In the present book I feel it works to the detriment of the narrative. The other distraction in the present book is the way he switches from a sweeping historical perspective to minute - and often prurient - details, like the halitosis of Abd al-Malek or the sexual antics of the empress Theodora before she got religion and married Justinian. Perhaps he really is trying to appeal to an audience that doesn't normally read "real" history, and would not swallow a straightforward chronological narrative - good luck with that.
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LibraryThing member Opinionated
This history of the birth of Islam and the parallel decline of the Persian and Roman Empires is an ambitious project. Basically Holland is attempting to track monotheism from cult to the norm across the known world of the time. And its a worthy effort - particularly some of the lesser known (to me
The problem is Holland's writing. His jaunty populist style seems inappropriate at times - do we really need the image of, for example, "areas of Constantinople where the Emperor would never deign to show his dainty perfumed sandel" ? This tabloid style spoiled it for me - I realise he has used this style in all his 3 previous books, but here it seems overcooked, as if he is compensating for the lack of document and lack of fact, with a documentary style that can't work. A shame
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anyway) threads, such as the growth of Zorastrianism and the border battles between the Roman and Persian empires - bloody battles, with loss of many lives, in places we have barely heard of amongst people we know little about . Holland's dissection of the birth of Islam, and its origins in the many swirling stories of what we now call the Middle East is also well doneThe problem is Holland's writing. His jaunty populist style seems inappropriate at times - do we really need the image of, for example, "areas of Constantinople where the Emperor would never deign to show his dainty perfumed sandel" ? This tabloid style spoiled it for me - I realise he has used this style in all his 3 previous books, but here it seems overcooked, as if he is compensating for the lack of document and lack of fact, with a documentary style that can't work. A shame
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LibraryThing member mumfie
I really enjoyed this book and will now go back and read his earlier ones. He writes history as a good and grand story with you closing the book and almost wondering what happened next.
This is a difficult time in history, with people re-writing it to suit their chosen narrative. Also there are so
Nevertheless one gets a sense of the fleeting and long lasting changes that happened and a sense of the size of the territory covered, both geographic and political.
The birth of all three Abrahamic religions are covered here, with their gradual formation and constant revision.
This is a difficult time in history, with people re-writing it to suit their chosen narrative. Also there are so
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many groups, tribes, sects that getting a handle on their differences can be fleeting. It's complicated.Nevertheless one gets a sense of the fleeting and long lasting changes that happened and a sense of the size of the territory covered, both geographic and political.
The birth of all three Abrahamic religions are covered here, with their gradual formation and constant revision.
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LibraryThing member SChant
Very enjoyable and lively journey through the clash of dying empires of Rome and Persia, and the rise of an Arab empire at an age when montheistic desert religions were codifying their belief systems and becoming entrenched in those empires.
LibraryThing member Luftwaffe_Flak
Very good look at not only the rise of Islam but also of the state of the Christian, Pagan, and Jewish religions at the time period and how they all intertwined and mingled with each other more than their prospective religious leaders would have liked. Holland does a good job of presenting the
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convoluted mess that is the origins of Islam as well as the hypocritical views of the Christian and Jewish faiths. The intro/first chapter was sort of plodding to me and had me worried about the rest of the book, however that fear was quickly put to rest and the book really took off writing wise. Show Less
LibraryThing member BrianHostad
What should be an interesting read, was actually a very hard slog. Too many characters and a style which I found hard work.
LibraryThing member 4bonasa
In depth and well documented telling of the origins of the Religions of Abraham. However, the authors style is circumspect and at time difficult to preserver. This is not a book for someone who's memory of 'Ancient History' has faded. Nonetheless, worth the effort.
LibraryThing member vguy
Central thesis is powerfully demonstrated and explored: the corpus of Muslim belief and practice was not delivered in a oner by an illiterate chap called M** in a remote corner of Arabia. It grew up over the two centuries of Arab conquest in the 8th and 9th centuries, incorporating myth, ritual,
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law and tradition from all the cultures of the Near East, especially Judaism and zoroastrianism. I'd always assumed that the Islamic story was reasonably authentic, though i knew that there has never been anything as rigorous as the Western biblical criticism. and i knew there were some variations in the islamic instructions on things like alcohol. but here we learn that the Koran lays down stoning as punishment for adultery , whereas Sharia law says "Stone them!", or rather "Stone her!" and that is Jewish. The Koran says: pray 3 times a day, the Sharia says five, and so on. I wold have liked much more of this, but Holland goes off after the first section on a huge digression which forms the bulk of the book; we get detailed histories of Byzantium (down to what Theodora wanted to do with her tits), of Iran including every fratricidal feud and Aryan assassination, and of Central asian tribes without number. This is perhaps there to give context, but is hard work dealing with myriad obscure groupings and short-lived dynasties. All is written in Holland's slightly purple suspense-building style which is fine, but i would rather have had the full meal on the shaky foundations of Islam promised by the title, subtitle and intro. Show Less
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Mr. Holland presents us with his take on the rise of Islam and an image of the world of the 500 - 600's CE that somehow mirrors some aspects of our own times. His writing style slips back and forth between the lively and the sensational and provides an entertaining survey of the period.
The end of
It is necessary as well to cover the state of the religion of the Zoroastrians of the period, and this is a useful addition to historians of the Middle East as there is little coverage of this group, especially in such a popularized format. Holland explains how these believers came to be classified as a "People of the Book". This brings us to the major theme of "In the Shadow of the Sword".
while Edward Gibbon gave us the initial Impression that Islam arose from a drive to civilize on the part of the Arabs embodied in creation of their own religion, and Toynbee saw Islam arising from a need for a declining civilization, the Syriac, to embody itself in a new world religion, Mr. Holland doesn't explore the idea of why Islam arose.
His field is a review of several of the intellectual strains that were interwoven into the Islamic Carpet (I'm sorry, couldn't resist that!) and a revisionist view of how Islam could have assumed its outlines by the end of the Umayyad Dynasty and the rise of the Abbasids, who presented the new faith in the guise that is familiar to us today.
In history we would like to have a period in which we possess an objective account, firmly buttressed with references from surrounding cultural groups, and tied to a firm chronology, with easily recoverable archaeological evidence. Mohammad's time doesn't fit that description, if we are using anything but the received account starting with a firm belief in the truth of Mohammad's recorded revelation, direct from Allah through the medium of an angelic guide. But as the period saw wide-spread violence in the area studied, a large movement of cultural groups and perhaps deliberate destruction relating material. Like Christianity in its first century and a half, Islam is not a well documented religion until after 750.
Holland creates a good deal of doubt that the standard account of the Prophet should be uncritically received. He manages to make us think about whether or not Mecca was the original shrine of Islam, whether the body of lore "The Hadith" was ever quotes from the Prophet, instead of a body of opportunistic rulings by a priestly class trying to evolve a workable institution, and whether the lack of prior writings of a religious nature in Arabic or stemming from the inhabitants of the Arabian Desert, is not the result of a rigorous intellectual cleansing of contentious or competing strains of religious writing from that area by the Abbasid dynasty bent on totalitarian rule.
It makes a very readable book, and makes us wonder if the creation of religions should not join legislation and sausage making as areas rewarding caution on the part of the consumer.
The end of
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the Persian-Roman dyarchy in the Middle East and the insertion of the Byzantine-Islamic dyarchy is his theme, and the method is to draw a rather sensational view of the preceding century, playing up the great plague of the mid-500's and the resulting lack of manpower and energy to resist a new irruption of relatively barbaric conquerors from the Arabic desert. The career of the emperor Heraclius neatly straddles the fall of the Persians, and the creation of the Byzantine-Islamic frontier that will remain constant for the following four and a half centuries. So Heraclius' dramatic story gets more attention than usual.It is necessary as well to cover the state of the religion of the Zoroastrians of the period, and this is a useful addition to historians of the Middle East as there is little coverage of this group, especially in such a popularized format. Holland explains how these believers came to be classified as a "People of the Book". This brings us to the major theme of "In the Shadow of the Sword".
while Edward Gibbon gave us the initial Impression that Islam arose from a drive to civilize on the part of the Arabs embodied in creation of their own religion, and Toynbee saw Islam arising from a need for a declining civilization, the Syriac, to embody itself in a new world religion, Mr. Holland doesn't explore the idea of why Islam arose.
His field is a review of several of the intellectual strains that were interwoven into the Islamic Carpet (I'm sorry, couldn't resist that!) and a revisionist view of how Islam could have assumed its outlines by the end of the Umayyad Dynasty and the rise of the Abbasids, who presented the new faith in the guise that is familiar to us today.
In history we would like to have a period in which we possess an objective account, firmly buttressed with references from surrounding cultural groups, and tied to a firm chronology, with easily recoverable archaeological evidence. Mohammad's time doesn't fit that description, if we are using anything but the received account starting with a firm belief in the truth of Mohammad's recorded revelation, direct from Allah through the medium of an angelic guide. But as the period saw wide-spread violence in the area studied, a large movement of cultural groups and perhaps deliberate destruction relating material. Like Christianity in its first century and a half, Islam is not a well documented religion until after 750.
Holland creates a good deal of doubt that the standard account of the Prophet should be uncritically received. He manages to make us think about whether or not Mecca was the original shrine of Islam, whether the body of lore "The Hadith" was ever quotes from the Prophet, instead of a body of opportunistic rulings by a priestly class trying to evolve a workable institution, and whether the lack of prior writings of a religious nature in Arabic or stemming from the inhabitants of the Arabian Desert, is not the result of a rigorous intellectual cleansing of contentious or competing strains of religious writing from that area by the Abbasid dynasty bent on totalitarian rule.
It makes a very readable book, and makes us wonder if the creation of religions should not join legislation and sausage making as areas rewarding caution on the part of the consumer.
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LibraryThing member aront
Easy reading & well worth it. 2 critiques:
1. He often quotes contemporaries fantastical view of events straight up when it is quite obvious he is slightly mocking them, which is fine once in a while but it becomes repetitious shtick
2. He hints at but doesn't really answer the question he posed at
In the documentary he did and in interviews he is much more forthcoming about his theories on point 2. Anyone reading this book should also watch the documentary and listed to his interview with Robin Pearson from the History of Byzantium podcast (as well as Robin's podcast on the topic of the Origen of Islam). I get that they are just theories and perhaps he was a bit reluctant to be too concrete and explicit in a book so as not to be accused of replacing one fantasy for another.
One last point: for every other major religion existent (and non-existent) today where there are tons of popular science*-based overviews, Holland's book is the first on the shelf for this topic and he does a damn good job. To his credit he's cracked the nut, opening the doors for others to popularize a more scientific approach to the origins of Islam.
* by science I mean critical, skeptical & evidence-based approaches not based on the evidence-free premise that any given religion is the word of God/s
1. He often quotes contemporaries fantastical view of events straight up when it is quite obvious he is slightly mocking them, which is fine once in a while but it becomes repetitious shtick
2. He hints at but doesn't really answer the question he posed at
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the beginning - what are the origins of the Quran and Islam and who is the Mohammed character?In the documentary he did and in interviews he is much more forthcoming about his theories on point 2. Anyone reading this book should also watch the documentary and listed to his interview with Robin Pearson from the History of Byzantium podcast (as well as Robin's podcast on the topic of the Origen of Islam). I get that they are just theories and perhaps he was a bit reluctant to be too concrete and explicit in a book so as not to be accused of replacing one fantasy for another.
One last point: for every other major religion existent (and non-existent) today where there are tons of popular science*-based overviews, Holland's book is the first on the shelf for this topic and he does a damn good job. To his credit he's cracked the nut, opening the doors for others to popularize a more scientific approach to the origins of Islam.
* by science I mean critical, skeptical & evidence-based approaches not based on the evidence-free premise that any given religion is the word of God/s
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LibraryThing member dhmontgomery
I liked this book a lot less than I expected. It's well-written and thought-provoking, but less than it could have been.
Ultimately In the Shadow of the Sword is two books in one: a narrative history of the rise of Islam, and a revisionist history challenging traditional assumptions about Islam's
To be fair, Holland couldn't have done much better. Contemporary sources are so scarce for this period — once one discards later efforts that may or may not be accurate — that making a positive argument about Muhammad's origins away from Mecca is basically impossible. He has to rely on coins, inscriptions, fragments of writing and observations from foreign observers to fill in the gaps left by the suspiciously late emergence several centuries later of Muhammad's traditional biography. This isn't enough to prove alternatives, but is enough to raise doubts about the traditional history.
I found the weakest part to be the first half, which is only obliquely about the Arabs at all. Instead, Holland goes into detail about the histories of two subjects he's written about before: the empires of Byzantine Rome and Sassanid Persia. This was interesting in itself (or would have been had I not recently covered almost all of it listening to the History of Byzantium podcast) and sometimes foreshadowed important developments, but largely felt like a distraction from the book's core thesis.
Ultimately In the Shadow of the Sword is two books in one: a narrative history of the rise of Islam, and a revisionist history challenging traditional assumptions about Islam's
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origins. Both intertwine in a way that is entertaining but slight. Too often the need to keep the narrative moving forward stops Holland from fully making the argument he wants to: that the Prophet Muhammad emerged not from the Hejaz, as traditional assumptions say, but from the deserts of Mesopotamia, the free-wheeling political and religious borderland where Arab tribes had lived for centuries between Romans and Persians, Christians and Zoroastrians. Instead, these arguments are often made in passing and by implication.To be fair, Holland couldn't have done much better. Contemporary sources are so scarce for this period — once one discards later efforts that may or may not be accurate — that making a positive argument about Muhammad's origins away from Mecca is basically impossible. He has to rely on coins, inscriptions, fragments of writing and observations from foreign observers to fill in the gaps left by the suspiciously late emergence several centuries later of Muhammad's traditional biography. This isn't enough to prove alternatives, but is enough to raise doubts about the traditional history.
I found the weakest part to be the first half, which is only obliquely about the Arabs at all. Instead, Holland goes into detail about the histories of two subjects he's written about before: the empires of Byzantine Rome and Sassanid Persia. This was interesting in itself (or would have been had I not recently covered almost all of it listening to the History of Byzantium podcast) and sometimes foreshadowed important developments, but largely felt like a distraction from the book's core thesis.
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LibraryThing member Vitaly1
Didn't really seem to have a unifying point or a strong conclusion.
Subjects
Awards
Globe and Mail Top 100 Book (Nonfiction — 2012)
Language
Original publication date
2012
ISBN
9780385531351