In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

by Tom Holland

The acclaimed author of Rubicon and other superb works of popular history now produces a thrillingly panoramic (and incredibly timely) account of the rise of Islam.
 
No less significant than the collapse of the Roman Republic or the Persian invasion of Greece, the evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement.  Just like the Romans, the Arabs came from nowhere to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion—except that they achieved their conquests not over the course of centuries as the Romans did but in a matter of decades. Just like the Greeks during the Persian wars, they overcame seemingly insuperable odds to emerge triumphant against the greatest empire of the day—not by standing on the defensive, however, but by hurling themselves against all who lay in their path.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Religion, Islam, Middle East, Ancient History, Politics

647 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Tom Holland is an English historian and author. He has written many books, both fiction and non-fiction, on many subjects from vampires to history.

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Holland was born near Oxford and brought up in the village of Broadchalke near Salisbury, England. He obtained a double first in English and Latin at Queens' College, Cambridge, and afterwards studied shortly for a PhD at Oxford, taking Lord Byron as his subject, before interrupting the post graduate studies and moving to London.

He has adapted Herodotus, Homer, Thucydides and Virgil for BBC Radio 4. His novels, including Attis and Deliver Us From Evil, mostly have a supernatural and horror element as well as being set in the past. He is also the author of three highly praised works of history, Rubicon, Persian Fire and Millennium.

He is on the committee of the Society of Authors and the Classical Association.

Reviews

[Tariq Mahmood · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a controversially exciting book for the Muslims of the world. Its an honour to get a serious scholar like Tom Holland actually researching the history of the Muslims and presenting theories that help fill out many gaps in the known Muslim history. Read on if you are slightly concerned about the various claims put together by the Ulema about the authenticity of the Quran
guaranteed by Allah; read on if you want to know why there is a period of almost 200 years of literacy silence after the death of Muhammed; read on if you are naive enough to believe that there were no factions during and after the life of Muhammed; keep reading to learn about the great Ummayid dynasty and the machinations of their most illustrious Khalifa Abd Al Malik, enlighten yourself if you think that Islam is any different from the Roman, Persian or Christian empires preceding it; read and learn about the concept of jihad; absorb the effects of what a serious piece of historical history should look like. I wish we had one historian within the Islamic domain with balls enough to tackle such interesting issues instead of hiding behind the huge and comfortable but undefinable 'wall of faith'.

This book is the serious version of Salman's Rushdie's Satanic verses, with a lot of conjecture but without any cheap or dirty fantasy analogies. Is there any scholar in the Muslim domain who can stand up and issue a serious rebuttal to this book or are we going to have to rely on some Western scholar to help us out yet again? I have asked Zia Uddin Sardar to reflect.

I have just read a pretty damning review by Zia Uddin Sardar in which he tries to take Tom's effort apart. But the issue is that history is not Zia's area of speciality. What is badly needed is a Muslim historian adept in global history and then handling these questions with some level of respect.

Tom concludes in the end that the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. I think Muslims have to rise to the challenge again.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate Holland gift for telling history but, most of the book is about other empires and other faiths. The research is excellent and writing fine. I agree on the importance of context. But, the part about Arabia seemed weaker than generously represents sections on Rome and Persia.

[Paul Pensom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read all of Tom Holland's books to date, but this one has proved the most controversial by far. It recounts the birth of the three great Abrahamic religions in late-antiquity, but predictably, given the current intellectual climate, it's his musings on the third, Islam, that has attracted the most ire. I read one review in particular, from a distinguished scholar that derided Holland's book in such excoriating terms as to make me take particular notice.

That review struck me at the time as having a more political agenda than its author was prepared to admit, and now, having read Holland's book I feel sure of it. I am no historian, nor yet an Arabic scholar, but one thing I do know: '...Shadow Of The Sword' is far from the sensationalist, Islamophobic tome that Glen Bowersock suggests. On the contrary, all of Holland's assertions seem well researched, fair minded and posed neither dogmatically nor idealistically. In short, Holland comes across as the historian, whereas Bowersock's review reeks of somebody afraid to rock the boat.

Besides all of that 'ITSOTS' is a fascinating history of a little-known (for me anyway) period. Holland's treatment of the religions is never less than respectful. The only point where he parts company with the faithful is in his refusal to accept divine intervention as history. Fair enough, I'd say.

[Steve Love · Rating 3 out of 5]

After hearing an interview with the author, I decided to read this, not out of any particular interest in Islam, but because of my curiosity for the origins of things. In that respect, In the Shadow of the Sword did not disappoint. As best I can tell, Tom Holland deserves to be commended for his research. His writing, on the other hand, leaves a little to be desired.

The book spans thousands of years, and in presenting his history, Holland often weaves together events that occurred many, many years apart. In doing so, he often left this reader confused about the timeline. While the book progressed in more or less a linear fashion, it often felt a little disorganized and disjointed. The same could be said for many of Holland's lengthy, twisting and winding sentences. By the time the end of a sentence was reached, so many clauses had been introduced that it was no longer clear what it was trying to convey and had to be read again.

Despite its flaws, In the Shadow of the Sword is a rewarding read for those who don't mind slogging through the history.

[Jimmit Shah · Rating 2 out of 5]

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 in 727 an 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 627, he began to target Khusrow’s 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 rival—but 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 non-Christian 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 fire-power, will always looks to find: a single body of adversaries that could be pinned down, brought to battle, and given a decisive knock-out 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.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In the Shadow of the Sword" by Tom Holland is an overview of the predecessors of Islam and Islam's first hundred years. The first 75% of the book covers the centuries immediately before Islam (up to about the year 610) and the last 25% covers Mohammed, the Quran, and the first century of Islamic expansion. Holland's premise is that Islam's birth was more of an evolution than a revolution - that Islam was in continuity with what went before and around it.

Given his premise, Holland focuses on the Roman and Persian Empires, on Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity, and, somewhat, on the local religious practices in Arabia. The implication is that Islam is a unique, hybrid mix of all these influences. In contrast to Christianity - which had Judaism as its primary source - Islam had multiple sources.

This book would have been better if Holland had done a better job "connecting the dots" between Islam and its preceding influences. It's mostly left to the reader to make the connections. A reader (like myself) who is not very familiar with Islam will be unaware of those influences and connections.

It also would have been better if more details about Mohammed had been included. After reading this book I still don't have a clear picture of Mohammed.

Holland attributes the success of Islamic colonialism to the declines of the war-weary Roman and Persian Empires, as well as, to the Black Death which had decimated the Indigenous peoples prior to Islamic invasion.

Overall, a decent, if somewhat dry, overview of the evolution of Islam.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Notes:
Audiobook:
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Length: 18 hours and 11 minutes
Release Date: 2015-05-12
Publisher: Tantor Audio

[Zachary · Rating 2 out of 5]

For some reason, in spite of repeat disappointments, I continue to return to the work of Tom Holland. While Rubicon and Persian Fire both helped stimulate my academic interest in ancient history, I have come to realize the problematic approach Holland takes to historical study. Dynasty, Holland’s half-baked precis of Suetonius and Tacitus, finally convinced me that popular narrative history is not much worth my time, which would be better spent with primary sources complemented with serious academic commentary by more credible historians than Holland. Still, I finally decided to read In the Shadow of the Sword, Holland’s helter-skelter foray into late antiquity in the Near East and the rise of Islam. In the Shadow of the Sword differs considerably from Rubicon, Persian Fire, and Dynasty in that it offers a kind of thesis rather than a pure narrative: that the traditional Muslim account for the life of Muhammad and the rise of Islam is not a reliable historical source for the roots of the Arab conquest, and that historians must look elsewhere to weave a barely coherent explanation for the sudden rise of the caliphate. More constructively, Holland maintains that historians should understand the loosely articulated set of beliefs of what would come to be known as Islam as influenced by and emanant from a richly diverse and complicated late antique milieu. The imperial ambitions of the Eastern Roman and Sassanid empires, the persistent evolution of Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism in the late antique period, and mercantile and military relationships between the Arab tribes and their Roman and Persian sponsors each underpin the inimitable social and cultural context, Holland contends, from which Islam derived and which it would ultimately overtake. Now, for those firmly committed to the idea that God’s revelations to Muhammad as communicated by the Prophet to his followers in no way derived from his prior familiarity with Judaism and Christianity or the late antique Near Eastern world, but came solely from the numinous mouth of Gabriel, this may be a predictably scandalous thesis from yet another secular historian. For most others, however, such a claim should not come as much of a surprise. In fact, Holland’s thesis is not exactly new: he simply repeats a set of claims made by a coterie of revisionist historians of Islam who first published their conclusions in the seventies. And, while some scholars skeptical of the traditional Muslim account of early Islam have certainly strayed into potentially Islamaphobic territory, revisionist scholarship of this period need not be wedded to modern anti-Muslim sentiments. All of which is to say, despite the fact that Holland frequently implies that a cabal of cowardly non-Muslim historians and Muslim scholars blindly committed to the truth of the traditional account have muddled the historical reality of early Islam, there has been plenty of sober academic work on the subject for many decades. What Holland offers here situates many of the conclusions of that work in what he hopes is a coherent historical narrative, rife with all the drama one expects from a Tom Holland book. The result is a convoluted mixture that oscillates wildly between semi-fictional narrative and ostensibly serious historical analysis.

While Holland opens the book with a whole host of questions with respect to the traditional narrative of the birth of Islam, he does not pursue these questions until its final third, once he has canvassed the late antique histories of the Byzantines and Sassanians and contextualized the cultural milieu in which the Arab conquests took place. For most readers, I suspect, this is the most anticipated part of the book—how does Holland answer major questions about the historicity of the Qur’an, the existence of Muhammad, the location of Mecca, and the influences of Judaism, Christianity, and Zoroastrianism on what would come to be known as the Islamic faith? Unfortunately, Holland’s narrative style of history is ill-suited to this task. That is, while Holland is famed and praised for the vividness of his historical narrative approach—he strives with mixed success in all his books to relate history as a literal story, with all the drama of fiction—that approach falters when he must plumb lacunae in the historical record with no obvious solutions. More to the point, Holland is at his best when the historical record is cohesive, linear, and more or less unproblematic. When this is the case—as it mostly is for the fall of the Roman republic, for instance—Holland can deploy his laudable ability to inject the historical narrative with dramatic flavor. When this is not the case, however—as Holland himself insists it is not for the birth of Islam and the Arab conquests—his attempt to collate questions, evidence, and plausible theories into a coherent narrative simply confuses matters. Holland’s solution to the dilemma raised by the dearth of evidence for his narrative style is to cast fairly mundane historical lacunae as eerie mysteries unplumbed by historians and Muslim scholars hitherto. He then presents himself as some kind of sleuth ready and able to venture into historical territory few others have had the audacity to explore. Of course, Holland relies heavily on prior academic work from Patricia Cone, Andrew Rippin, and other revisionist academic historians for how he answers the particular questions he poses, and he himself would be the first, I am sure, to humbly concede his debt to these scholars. Stylistically, however, Holland presents his theories as if they materialized out of thin air—or perhaps were revealed to him by God. Holland never refers to scholars by name in the main text of the narrative, never interrupts his narrative to canvass why one theory from a particular scholar is more persuasive than another from a different scholar, and buries his footnotes in the back of the book. Evidently, this is because In the Shadow of the Sword is a popular history—lay readers are supposedly uninterested in these baseline academic formalities, despite the fact that Holland’s task in this book is an explicitly academic one.

In the Shadow of the Sword is problematic less because Holland’s skepticism of the traditional Muslim narrative for the birth of Islam is unwarranted—in the same way historians question Exodus or Acts of the Apostles as reliable sources for the roots of Judaism and Christianity, respectively—but because Holland so clumsily traverses hotly debated academic territory in his effort to create a coherent historical narrative. No amount of rhetorical flourish or vivid description can do the same work that slow, careful, and sometimes tedious historical scholarship can accomplish. Ironically, the lucidity of the solutions Holland offers to a series of vexed questions on the birth of Islam comes at the expense of his bombastic narrative style. To cite just one example, Holland questions whether Muhammad initially lived in Mecca and, even further, questions whether Mecca existed an important commercial center prior to the Umayyads. His reasons for this skepticism are sufficiently articulate—other than a sole mention in the Qur’an, the earliest textual reference to Mecca is from 741, where it is located in Mesopotamia, “midway between Ur and Harran”; its location in a desert valley far from the coast renders it an unlikely center of commerce; and a major road that connected Himyar with Roman markets bypassed the supposed location of Mecca entirely—yet his explanation for why the fifth caliph, Abd al-Malik, ultimately chose what would become Mecca as the site for the House of God, the now-famous Ka’ba, is muddled and all too brief. Perhaps a ka’ba had stood there before, scattered as such sites were across Arabia, and perhaps it was associated one way or another with Muhammad. Perhaps Al-Malik, due to his connections to the area around Mecca, was familiar with such a shrine, and randomly selected it to become the holiest site in all Islam. These are unsatisfactory answers to a problem Holland himself raises. That is, while there may be reasons to call into question the centrality of Mecca in the traditional Muslim narrative, one cannot simply accept the conclusion that pre-Umayyad Mecca never existed without a persuasive answer for why Al-Malik so honored the site. This is because a far simpler answer to the latter question is that, per the traditional narrative, Mecca did indeed exist and was the birthplace of Muhammad, and thus held a sacred status well before Al-Malik’s rule. Yet Holland either discounts the Occam’s razor solution or is so wedded to the coherence of his narrative that he refuses to entertain a very different story at odds with the drama that has unfolded up to this point in the book.

In the end, In the Shadow of the Sword demonstrates why popular narrative history is deeply ill-suited to the task of serious historical scholarship. At the same time that Holland expresses typical academic skepticism of a time-honored historical narrative—a standard move in revisionist history that has led to important scholarly developments—he trades in cultural stereotypes of Romans, Persians, and Arabs, and relates a whole host of deeply implausible anecdotes to add color to the story he seeks to tell. It is deeply ironic that, in a book that aims to call attention to the implausibility of the traditional Muslim account for the life of Muhammad and the birth of Islam, Holland’s first chapter starts with the story of the death of Yusuf As’ar Yath’as, the Jewish ruler of Himyar who is said to have ridden his horse into the Red Sea, never to be seen thereafter. While Holland concedes later that other sources claim that Yusuf lost his life in battle, not amidst the waves of the Red Sea, he has already shown his cards: In the Shadow of the Sword does not posture as a serious work of historical scholarship and, thus, should not be taken as such. Readers sincerely interested in questions about the roots of Islam would do better to turn to the back of Holland’s book, peruse his footnotes and references, and read Patricia Cone instead.

[Elentarri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Holland provides a broad, sweeping history that examines the origins of Islam in context of the politics, various cultures and religions, as well a the time (late antiquity) and place (mostly the near-east).  Not an easy feat, since there is a distinct lack of literacy evidence for the events describing the rise of Islam for almost 200 years after the death of Muhammed.  This is a compelling story written in a conversational manner.  This book is supposedly controversial, but I suspect that is true of any book that questions the dictates of any religion.  In any case, I learned new things and now have more things to ruminate on.  The book includes maps, a timeline, a glossary, and a dramatis personae.

[Simon Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 re-examines 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.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not to be confused with a modern history of Islam!

In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire describes the rise of the Muslim movement in the context of history from Late Antiquity through the 8th Century AD. Author Tom Holland documents the rise of the Arab Caliphate with the co-dependent development of Islam as a religion, filling the power vacuum left with the decline of Roman and Persian Empires. He does this using what we know from secular historical facts, stripping away the many times distorted hagiographies of famous religions personages. Those interested in a historical look at how Islam evolved in its earliest years without the religious influence of ahistorical facts this is a good account.

[K.J. Charles]

A history of the Middle East in late antiquity: the decline and fall of the Roman empire, the rise and fall of the Persian ditto, the spread of Christianity, survival of Judaism, and origins of Islam. (The marketing of my copy is completely different to the subtitle here and neither is entirely accurate.)

Well written and told with verve but also a *lot* of jumping around the timeline. I mostly gleaned that it would have been a pretty shitty time to live tbh, all very end of days. Extremely interesting on the creation of religion though, and the way writings have shaped and altered reality.

[Emiliya Bozhilova · Rating 3 out of 5]

”...помнете, че вратата към рая е в сянката на меча”.

Религия и история са неразривно свързани и неразривно враждебни. Вероятно въпросът какви са историческите предпоставки за възникването на исляма, кой е написал Корана и каква в истината за първоначалното му разпространение би възмутил дълбоко силно вярващите. Но пък е страшно интересен. Е, рискът за твърде любопитния не е малък, а източниците са строго ограничени и под контрола почти единствено на последователите на Пророка. Затова е похвално, че - с цел да предостави отговори - Холанд прави опит да изследва късната античност и ранно средновековие по земите от Рим до Персеполис.

Някои факти са любопитни и интересни и навяват асоциации за влиянията, вплетени в исляма:
🔥 зеленият цвят някога е бил цветът на бог Митра;
🔥 зороастрийците също имат пет молитви;
🔥 обожествяването на камъни е доста разпространено сред арабите в предислямски време - самата Кааба е подслонявала почитани многобройни идоли, преди да я “прочистят”.

Куп загадки ще чакат търпеливо деня за разрешаването си и най-вече за смелия правоверен, върху когото да не се стовари вечното проклятие на едноверците му:
☪️ Кога е писан Коранът? Има податки за ранния 7-ми век, но тъй като в словото на Аллаха, за разлика от Библията, липсват каквито и да е геополитически ориентири, датировката е крайно трудна.
☪️ Защо най-известните хадиси и коментари датират най-рано два века след Хиджра и съдържат факти, които по никакъв начин не се съдържат в Корана? Там самият Мохамед (Мухаммад) се споменава всичко на всичко четири пъти, да не говорим пък, че негова “биография”, както е позната днес, там просто липсва.
☪️ Наистина ли Мека е имал предвид като средоточие на новата религия Пророкът, или съвсем друго място с реално съществувал древен храм?
☪️ Защо откритите в Йемен ранни записи на Корана моментално са укрити и нито един западен учен повече не е допуснат до тях, след като един германски специалист ги определя като “коктейл от влияния”?

Както отбелязва Холанд, ислямският свят е още далеч от дързостта на християнската мисъл от 19-ти век, която започва да задава куп неудобни въпроси за произхода на Новия Завет, и даже да намира някои смущаващи отговори.

Обаче самият Холанд доста е оплел конците със своето изложение по тази прелюбопитна тема.

Първо, личи си, че е много по-добър познавач на християнството и античността, отколкото на исляма. Анализът му на силните центробежни процеси през първите 5 века от новата ера в двете велики империи (Римската и Персийската), дали възможност арабите и една нова религия бързо да завладеят все по-големи територии, е разхвърляно-досадно-обстоятелствен. Стига чак до основаването на Рим и троянската война, което съвсем ме разконцентрира. По отношение на Сасанидска Персия пък набляга на драмата, вместо на хронологията, поради което връзките между събитията се губят за сметка на търсена сензационност. “Комунисти” в Персия? Хайде де! Или не разбира комунистите, или не разбира персите - и в двата случая говори лошо за историческата му компетентност.

Второ, склонността му към силни определения и спекулация при мъгляви факти е повече от обичайното. Твърде гръмки твърдения при недостатъчна обосновка.

И трето, ислямът се появява чак на последните страници. Първите две трети от книгата са Рим, Византия, Юдея и Персия с всевъзможни разхвърляни отклонения. И когато най-сетне се появи, спекулата се засили драматично и зрънцата интересни факти взеха пак да се губят. Фактологията изтече в пясъците, и останах с впечатлението, че Холанд просто пълни с баласт оставащите му страници, за да не излезе, че съвсем е подвел читателя за темата на книгата.

С две думи, такова проучване все още чака истинския си автор.

⭐️ 2,5 звезди ⭐️

[Aleks · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was not a terrible book. I found it lacking in facts and very heavy on the author's own opinions. I felt the huge claims he was making it the book were not supported by evidence at all times. I felt most of the time it was supported by the author's own prose.

Was it a history book? It was mostly a history of religion.

Was it opinion? If it was, it wasn't very interesting.

The author's style isn't bad but it wasn't a credit to the story either. The book moves along well in the beginning and middle. It is best when it is supported by maps, names, and years.

The ending is really the weakness because you eventually realize that the book isn't building to anything noteworthy. The author ends the book summed up the book as if he was telling a story of how empires crumbled and gave way to another. But that really wasn't the point of the book. Any facts or history I picked up on were mostly incidental.

I felt the book mostly revolved around the history of the three big religions, their influence on each other, and the relationship between religion and state.

The only reason I give this two stars instead of one is this book helped buttress my knowledge of the era between the fall of the western Roman empire and medieval times. I especially lacked knowledge of the near east during this time. So I was grateful for that but this book was wholly inefficient in that regard.

I did also enjoy learning about Islam and the hadiths. I was always under the impression that Islam had a detailed history unlike Judaism and Christianity. I learned that's not completely true and that much of Islam was invented after the fact.

Would I recommend this book? Probably not. Despite the things I learned, It just wasn't worth it.

[Paul Pessolano · Rating 4 out of 5]

“In the Shadow of the Sword” by Tom Holland, published by Doubleday.

Category – History

Tom Holland takes on a daunting task of tracing the rise of Islam. He traces the beginning from antiquity to the present. It is far reaching in scope and gives new insight into present day politics and religion.

The book starts with the founding of Rome and how it was able to rule the known world to the how and why Rome failed. It takes on the rise of the Muslim world with the teachings of Muhammad to its present day position in the world and world affairs.

This is very heavy reading, especially when the author explains the socio/political aspects of each ruler and how it rose to prominence and finally its own destruction. This was true not only the rulers but the different religions being professed during each of these periods in history.

As the Roman Empire seemed to just materialize overnight, it was the same with Islam and the Arab Empire.

“In the Shadow of the Sword” is history at its best, but written for those who have a deep interest in history. The book is very detailed and will have the reader referring back to the Timeline, Dramatis Personas, and Glossary until the final page.

[Richard Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this an invaluable account in a single volume of how the monotheistic religions on the Middle East developed and inter-related. Each influenced the others but each retained and retain their own view as being the right passage to eternity. Theologians and ancient history specialists may quibble about the book or parts of it but this general reader liked and likes it.

[Old Dog Diogenes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actualizing out of the mists of the Arabic desert, the history of the Arabs, the prophet Muhammad, and their sacred text the Quran is lacking in historical documentation. Tom Holland does an amazing job sifting through the mists to present to us a well researched and informative read.

[Rindis · Rating 4 out of 5]

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 AD 500 and AD 800, things look very different, and the source of changes seems invisible in AD 500.

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 state-backed power of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. He goes into some, and lists a few oddities from the 5th and 6th Centuries. Oddities that sound really familiar in a religion that was supposed to spring full-formed 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 the 630s slipped out of memory, and into history.

Its a well-written 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.

[BJ Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like thıs book a whole lot more than I did. I have been looking for a book that will present a (relatively) unbiased look at the real history of Arabia and the rise of Islam on the world stage. Unfortunately, it seems like I must keep looking.

When it comes to the history of Arabia from the sixth through eighth centuries, there are really only two options available to us. There is the Muslim mythology created whole cloth in the mid 8th century (or later) and there is a deconstructionist critique that demonstrates how this mythology purporting to be history cannot possibly be true. I was hoping that this would be the popular narrative that can square what we do know of the history of that time with what we are far more certain of in the centuries that followed.

To be fair, Tom Holland does provide hints of this. His forte is the decline of the late Roman and Persian empires and we receive another telling of this time with the specific outlook on how it impacted the Arabian Peninsula. Unfortunately, the second half of this book was not a cut and dry narrative of the historical events that saw Islam come into existence and take over huge swaths of the known world of that time. Instead, it was just a dry commentary on a timeline he seems to assume everyone already knows and a bit of speculation on how the core elements of Muslim faith (the biography of Muhammed, the pseudo-history of Mecca and Medina, and the creation of the Quran, the Hadiths, and the Caliphate) might possibly have fit in.

This style might have worked well for Rubicon because everybody knows the history of Rome at the time of Julius and Octavian Caesar. That is an integral part of Western culture. The early history of the Arabian Peninsula and the elements of the Muslim faith most certainly are not. There is some good stuff here and definitely food for thought for those very familiar with traditional Muslim history, but I can't think of a single English speaking friend to whom I would recommend this book.


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Postscript: As I have come to learn more and more of the real Muslim history, I find I have less respect for Tom Holland's work. Rather than read it again to find and point out some of the errors he surely makes, here are some obvious errors he made about Christian history which is much more documented and should be much easier to get right. If he did such a poor job researching and sharing what I am familiar with, should I not also expect the same for the rest as well?

Holland: "The Council of Chalcedon struck the Christians of both the West and Constantinople as eminently reasonable - so much so that never again would they attempt to reverse it." -

Ummm. No. Tens of thousands of Christians set up an alternate church in Egypt to avoid having to endorse it. There were also many, many more who migrated from Byzantium to Persia to do the same. And there were still others remaining in the empire who were still contesting it as much as two hundred years later.

Holland: "As for Justinian... he never doubted for a moment his ability to secure Christian unity."

Again, no. Justinian's wife was a monophysite and it was believed by many that this union was a polity decision so that even as he appeared orthodox, those outside of orthodoxy would still have a voice in his court.

Holland: "'Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?' So Paul, berating the Athenians for their idolatry had asked."

Strike three, and you missed this one by a mile. Paul was berating the Corinthians, not the Athenians. And it was their pride, not their idolatry that he was addressing with this scripture.

[Endre Fodstad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holland is really good with his narrative, but just as in Millenium (I have not read his other books so far) I think this book shows that he struggles slightly with "the big picture". The scope of this book is very broad - Holland attempts to show the links early Islam has with the other religions it came into contact with: Zoroastrianism, Judaism and Christianity in particular, and how these religions influenced the hadith and the Qu'ran itself. It works well...but not perfectly. He builds up well in describing the struggles of Zoroastrian Persia and Christian Roma, and the minority faiths, Judaism as well as others. He also does good work on the little we know of early Islam and the arabs, and is good at presenting the different hypotheses on the origins of the Qu'ran and its relation to the other religions. But at the end, he loses track ever so slightly as he keeps the narrative going, and the book peters out rather than ends with a bang.

[Erwin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only finished the first 20% of this, but I had already read several other books about the middle east and religious developments in that area from 4000-2000 years ago. Another goodreads reviewer perfectly summed up my thoughts by saying the book could be retitled:

A Chronological Recitation of The History of the Abrahamic Religions, With Multitudinous Minutiae Relating To Christianity and Judaism, With Perhaps An Eventual Arrival At the Religion Mentioned in the Title (But Not Guaranteed).

If you haven't read any other books about early Judaism or early Christianity, this may be an interesting read. If you are familiar with these topics and primarily interested in more information about the history of the Muslim faith as promised by the title, then you'll need to keep looking.

Unfortunately I haven't found a fast paced, broad, accessible review of the Muslim faith for the casual reader that I can recommend.

[Omar Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book, but you will likely learn much more about pre-Islamic Persia and Byzantium than about early Islam...this is not Tom Holland's fault, there is just less material out there (or at least, less material that is not part of the official hagiographical and semi-mythical accounts written by Abbasid era Muslim historians), but it does mean that some of the riddles about early Islam (what was it really like in the beginning, where was the beginning, who did what in the beginning, etc etc) are introduced as riddles, but then not really answered. And when it comes to the conquests, there are better books out there that cover the same territory ("In God's Path" and "The war of the three Gods" for example).
The Persian section was specially enlightening for me. Someday, I have to read more about Persia.
Worth a read.

[Bettie]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/...

Voltaire: Often quoted advocate of freedom of expression.

Historian Tom Holland was one of those who tweeted Charlie Hebdo's cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad in the wake of the deadly attack on the magazine's office. Here he explains the ramifications of defending free speech.

[Fahed Al Kerdi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tom Holland will never believe that a group of Bedouins could establish a flourishing civilization that shined above the Roman and Persian Empires and stunned the Christian world! What should we do to convince you that Islam is not a conspiracy made up by Jews against the Christianity?
Very disappointing book... Very Islamophobic... Too much worthless analysis... Boring boring boring!
I will never read another book written by Tom Holland!

[DoctorM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've given this 4 stars, but I wish my rating could've been a bit more nuanced. The writing is excellent, and there are parts of "In the Shadow of the Sword" that are fascinating--- Holland's account of the controversies about the first century of Islam, the account of the first intrusions by the new Arab power into Byzantine and Persian territory. Holland does highlight how little we actually know about the early 600s in northern and northwest Arabia, and how very, very few contemporary accounts there are of the first generation of Islam. Despite how much the narrative of the life of the Prophet and the formation of an Islamic state seems to be clearly historical, Holland reminds us that, in the end, we can't even be sure that today's Mecca was the Prophet's hometown and later capital and that we have very little evidence for how the Qu'ran in its present form came to be. Holland presents those mysteries--- questions originally raised by scholars like Patricia Crone ---very well.

Yet...his account of Persian politics in the century or two prior to the coming of the Arabs is a bit shallow and superficial, and he relies on very thin sources to construct his picture of Persia. He can be equally casual about Byzantium, the Rome-in-the-East that still ruled the eastern half of the old Empire, and he does sometimes settle for very superficial explanations of events. Though in Holland's defense, he is trying to do two things--- discuss the development of early Islam and present a political history of the Near East from c. 500-800 ---each of which could require its own 800pp. book.

"In the Shadow of the Sword" is worth reading--- let's not think I didn't read this and learn a great many things, or that I didn't enjoy the topic and the presentation. I'll stand by the 4 stars, but I will say that Holland's book is an introductory sketch that often falls back into narrative that should have far more analysis behind it. It's worth reading, though--- except for the material on the new issues and controversies about the origins of the Qu'ran and Islam ---its political and military history still can't match what Sir John Glubb did half a century ago.

[Charlie Hasler · Rating 3 out of 5]

However clearly this is extremely well researched and painstakingly put together, for me this was just too intense a historical read. Unlike other of Holland's books I have read Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic and Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar I enjoyed this the least. It was at times very hard to read and keep track of whatever was going on, who was who and where was where. That's just me though, I am not arguing this book is filled with information but just not the information I was expecting. I am a novice when it comes to historical reading so this may have been too advanced for me. I will say however I liked how the author does not hold back with some fairly controversial views and stating the facts however uncomfortable they be to some religions and their respective followers. I plan to read Persian Fire next as I said earlier I am an overall fan of the author just not this book so much. 3 stars for the mount Everest of research that went into the this book.

[Dinah Küng · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant and highly recommended reading for anyone interested in Islam and its true origins. One quibble, I wish the author wouldn't introduce really important characters by backing into them, so to speak, so only after three paragraphs, do you get an aha! moment when you recognize the historical figure entering the scene.
Otherwise, clear writing, entertaining presentation of complicated historical material and rich depiction of a place (post-Roman Near East) and centuries (7th and 8th) that aren't exactly on most people's immediate radar screen.
Worth reading for the explanation of the plague's effect on geopolitical balance in that region alone. Devastation on a scale that left the Arabs, formerly bandit clients buffering two mega powers of East and West, blinking in the dust as they realized the Roman and Persian empires were eviscerated by disease and now little more than rotting corpses and roads covered with weeds. Makes you read of novovirus threats today with a freshly minted fear.
Despite its length, this book was the read of a very enjoyable week. Thanks, Tom Holland and bravo!

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the marketing for this book was a little misleading, I was expecting the focus to be on the collapse of Roman and Persian power in the near east in the face of the Arabs, but the book actually focuses little on this event. Instead the book focuses on the interplay between religion and empire and how it shaped the events we now mark as the end of antiquity, as well as their aftermath.

There is also tantalising and very well researched scholarship in here about the historicity of the Koran, early Muslim historiography, etc, but while the author presents these very compellingly he doesn't weave it well into the overall direction of the book.

Overall a grand sweep of the late antique near east and what became of it, very well researched and entertainingly told, though in the end the narrative lacks focus while the conclusion felt weak and abrupt. But well done to Holland for venturing off the beaten path.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely not what I expected! Much of the book is setting the scene for the origins of Islam. But then it becomes apparent why that was necessary as Holland builds his thesis that Islam didn't just happen but was the product of all that was going on throughout the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian nations and tribes. Controversial, but timely, fascinating and thoroughly convincing.

[Azam Ch. · Rating 5 out of 5]

really well written and a very interesting book to read,
it had much more of roman and persian history than i was expecting but hey, i am not complaining!
all those talks about the persian kings, the christian stylites, jews of mesomotamia, samaritans, justinian, kawad - good stuff.
and in the end it did continue talking about islam and its origins and rise again (connecting it to the history of the past things it talked about in the previous chapters).
overall a pretty entertaining book in the way it was written with tons of footnotes about almost every claim it makes to back its claims up and be both fun and informational,
its claims about early islamic history are based on the author's rejection of taking any hadiths as legit material and seeing them as later forgeries inspired from rabbianic and mowbed traditions and he goes into a lot of detail talking about a lot,
well its a 500 page book so i dont think a 1 page review can do it much justice to it and the arguments it makes and stories it talks about going over one point after another decade after decade till the end so i end my review with that.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting if somewhat frustrating account of the 7th century rise of Islam which seeks to explain how the Arabs exploded onto the map and established a global empire in the span of a generation.

Tom Holland is known for covering classical history with a deft talent for simplification and drama thereby making them accessible to the broader public. Throughout the book this deft touch splutters in and out in a somewhat maddening way. We start with an account of a Jewish ruler in Yemen losing his life (suicide potentially) to an Ethiopian christian invasion. Than move briskly to an account of the Persian Empire their battles with the Romans, followed by an account of the Late Roman Empire and their battles (different ones with the Persians) and how this impacted the whole middle east. In both accounts the politicization of religion and vice versa are discussed in depth, with more insight in the case of the Romans than the Persian.

Finally after roughly 250 or pages or so he turns to the emergence of Islam and the Arab empire. He makes the very uncontroversial point that at this stage destructive fighting of the two existing global empires, the Romans and the Persians, against eachother, through civil war and against the barbarian hordes led to hollowed weak entities based on scorched earth and ripe for the plucking.

There follows more controversial points, having demonstrated the evidence that both the Bible and the Talmud were heavily shaped by the preoccupations of the 6th century he argues the same holds true for the Koran and that little that is believed to be true about the origins is backed with evidence and that much which is practiced today was retrofitted much later.

Its all rather interesting in a snippet kind of way but in terms of dramatic arc the whole not sure if it really happened this way and there is little we really know is a bit lacking. All the more so because either you believe the holy texts are holy and therefore this all apostatic rubbish or you believe they are man made constructs and therefore this all obvious. I guess now i know I dont know.