Tabl<? of ^ont<?nty Notes on Pronunciation • xi 1. Pre-Islamic Arabia 1 Name and Origin • 3 Ancient South Arabia • 6 Arabia in the Hellenistic Period • 8 Arabs and Romans • 10 Arabia between Byzantines and Persians • 14 Old Arabic Language, Poetry, and Script • 18 2. Arabia and Islam 23 Arabia on the Eve of Islam • 25 The Prophet Muhammad • 29 The Arab-Islamic Conquests • 32 The Caliphate of the Umayyads (661-750) • 38 The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad • 43 AI-'Arabiyya: High Arabic Language and Literature • 47 The Arab Reception of Antiquity • 52 Arabic Numerals and the Zero • 58 Arabization and Islamization • 60 The Mamluks • 70 3. The Arab World from 900 to 1500 CE 75 Iraq • 78 Syria/Palestine • 83 Egypt • 87 The Maghreb and al-Andalus • 92 v http://d-nb.info/102686528X vi The Arabs 4. The Arab World from 1500 to 1800 CE 101 The Fertile Crescent under Ottoman Rule • 105 The Arabian Peninsula • 108 Egypt • 111 The Maghreb • 113 5. The Nineteenth Century 119 The Mashriq * 121 , The Maghreb • 131 Strategies against European Intervention: Europeanization, Islamic Renewal, Nationalism • 134 6. State Building and Independence in the Twentieth Century 143 The First World War and the Mandatory Period • 145 The Salafiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood • 150 The Palestine Question • 152 The Second World War and the Establishment of the Arab League • 153 The Founding of Israel and the First Middle East War • 155 Ba'th Party and Nasserism • 156 The Six-Day War (June 1967) • 160 The Sadat Era (1970-1981): The October War, the Infitah, and the Oil Crisis • 161 The Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) • 164 The 1990s: The First Intifada and the Gulf War • 168 7. The Beginning of the Twenty-first Century 171 The Second Intifada • 173 The Iraq War • 176 Contents APPENDIX Primary Source Readings from the History of the Arabs Introduction • 181 READINGS FOR CHAPTER 1 • 185 1. A medieval historian on nomadic and sedentary peoples • 185 Ibn Khaldun 2. The nomads of Arabia in antiquity • 193 Diodorus Siculus al-Mas'udi 3. Arabic poetry • 195 'Antara ibn Shaddad READINGS FOR CHAPTER 2-197 4. The Qur'an • 197 5. The hadith • 202 6. Muhammad • 205 Ibn Ishaq 7. A conquest treaty from Spain • 208 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn Musa ibn Nusayr 8. A dissident opinion of the Umayyads • 210 Abu Hamza al-Mukhtar ibn 'Awf 9. The dilemma of a Muslim ruler *214 Ziva' al-Din al-Barani 10. Jahiz on singing girls • 217 'Amr ibn Bahr al-Jahiz 11. Reconciling the religious and philosophical sciences • 221 Abu al-Hasan al-'Amiri READINGS FOR CHAPTER 3 • 224 12. Whom to hire to run one's affairs • 224 Nizam al-IMulk 13. From the autobiography of 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi • 228 'Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi 14. Those boorish Franks • 231 Usama ibn Munqidh 15. Hard times on the Nile • 233 Ahmad ibn 'Ali al-Maqrizi viii The Arabs 16. Problems of married life • 237 Ja'far ibn Ahmad 17. Latin and Arabic in al-Andalus • 239 Alvarus of Cordoba 18. Andalusi poems on forbidden love and the fall of Granada • 240 anonymous READINGS FOR CHAPTER 4 • 245 19. A British traveler on Arabs and Turks in the Syrian desert • 245 William Beawes 20. Principles of Wahhabism • 247 Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab 21. The advent of coffee and coffee-drinkers • 249 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jaziri, anonymous 22. A European observer of the Ottoman military • 252 Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq 23. A French observer of the Moroccan military • 255 Louis Ch6nier READINGS FOR CHAPTER 5 • 258 24. A Sunni modernist on the conversion of Iraq's Arabs to Shi'ism • Rashid Rida 25. The Gulf before oil • 262 Carsten Niehbuhr 26. A barber of Damascus: Ahmad Budayri al-Hallaq's chronicle of the year 1749 • 265 Ahmad Budayri al-Hallaq 27. Aftermath to a massacre • 269 anonymous 28. Observing the French in Egypt • 271 Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti READINGS FOR CHAPTER 6 • 276 29. Behind-the-scenes dealings of the early 20th century • 276 Various European diplomats 30. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood on politics and religion • Hasan al-Banna' 31. Israel's declaration of independence • 287 32. The Palestinian National Covenant • 291 33. The Hamas charter • 296 Contents ix 34. The heady years of Arab nationalism • 300 Gamal 'Abd al-Nasir 35. Sadat in Jerusalem • 304 Anwar al-Sadat 36. Political jokes from Egypt and Syria • 308 37. Impressions of the Lebanese civil war • 313 Mishka Moujabbar Mourani READINGS FOR CHAPTER 7 -319 38. The dark days of Iraqi discord • 319 Ayatollah Sistani 39. Israel's mid-life crisis? • 322 David Grossman 40. A manifesto of the Arab Spring • 327 The April 6 Youth Movement References for Primary Source Readings • 331 Bibliography • 335 Index of Names • 339 About the Author, Editors, and Translators • 343 .