I. Pre-Islamic Arabia
Name and Origin
Ancient South Arabia
Arabia in the Hellenistic Period
Arabs and Romans
Arabia between Byzantines and Persians
Old Arabic Language, Poetry, and Script
II. Arabia and Islam
Arabia on the Eve of Islam
The Prophet Muhammad
The Arab-Islamic Conquests
The Caliphate of the Umayyads (661-750)
The Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad
Al-Arabiyya: High Arabic Language and Literature
The Arab Reception of Antiquity
Arabic Numerals and the Zero
Arabization and Islamization
The Mamluks
III. The Arab World from 900 to 1500 AD
Iraq
Syria/Palestine
Egypt
The Maghreb and al-Andalus
IV. The Arab World from 1500 to 1800
The Fertile Crescent under Ottoman Rule
The Arabian Peninsula
Egypt
The Maghreb
V. The Nineteenth Century
The Mashriq
The Maghreb
Strategies against European Intervention: Europeanization, Islamic Renewal, Nationalism
VI. State Building and Independence in the Twentieth Century
The First World War and the Mandatory Period
The Salafiyya and the Muslim Brotherhood
The Palestine Question
The Second World War and the Establishment of the Arab League
The Founding of Israel and the First Middle East War
Ba’th Party and Nasserism
The Six-Day War (June 1967)
The Sadat Era (1970-1981): The October War, the Infitah, and the Oil Crisis
The Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990) and the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988)
The 1990s: The First Intifada and the Gulf War
VII. The Beginning of the Twenty-first Century
The Second Intifada
The Iraq War in 2003
Bibliography
Notes on Pronunciation
Index of Personal Names