Emergence of Arab Islam and the end of Antiquity – in context
Review of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire by Tom Holland
This book covers a seminal historical nexus, marking the death of classical civilization and the beginning of the medieval period. At the center of it is the rise of Islam, which would become the dominant cultural and military force for the next 800 years.
First, there were 2 classical empires about to be eclipsed: Byzantium and Persia. They were involved in a brutal conflict that was as close to the modern conception of total war as you could come. While western Rome was crumbling into the near-anarchy that presaged the dark ages, these 2 empires remained gigantically ambitious, endowed with extraordinarily rich civilizations and elaborate customs developed over centuries.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, the religious ideology (or concept or belief, whatever you choose) of monotheism is reaching the tipping point of general and unquestioned acceptance from Europe to Central Asia. Here, you have the Jewish and Christian religions, but also Zoroastrianism, Manichaeism, and many others (e.g. Samaritans) that have been long forgotten. This represented a swirling mass of ideas – evolving practices as well as support for the ideology behind despotic states – that were being written down in what would become definitive texts to the present day, e.g. the "oral" Torah and the New Testament.
Finally, from this context, there is the birth of the Islamic faith, which draws on many of these ideas to create a fighting force and ideology that would dominate the world. It too was written down in the Koran but also the explosively burgeoning commentaries that accompanied it.
From the 5th century, the classical empires found themselves in a perilous state of transition. This involved the systematic incorporation of religious ideology into the service of the autocratic state. In the long christological struggle to define the nature of Christ and the "correct" form of orthodoxy, the emperor Justinian imposed his version of the faith on all the peoples of the eastern Roman Empire with the heavy hand of administrative and police repression.
Prior to this internal inquisition, the Empire had been relatively more tolerant of competing faiths, including Christian variants, Jews, and the fading pagan religions. This created bitter resentment and eventually undermined popular support for the Empire, weakening its hold on many regions.
The Sassanian Empire had developed its own fundamentalist version of Zoroastrianism, at a moment when it was facing pressure on its Northeastern frontier. Combined with traditional rivalries from Parthian aristocrats, this also undermined the cohesion of the Persian diaspora. Add to this the exhaustion following total war of 30 years or so, and both empires found themselves in a unique state of geopolitical weakness.
A vital theme of the book is the establishment of fundamental texts in each tradition. This covers an extraordinary range of ideas, from the New Testament, Torah, and Koran to the consolidation of all Roman law in the Justinian Code. The importance of these accomplishments cannot be over-emphasized: they set, in many ways, the terms and sources of debate to govern each society (and culture) that reigned supreme until the Renaissance and Enlightenment in the West, retaining their influence to the present day. Islam took a more fundamentalist course and remains in a state of tension as it attempts to update itself into modern times. The impact of these texts is so rich and complex that I cannot encapsulate them here, but felt inspired to go to additional sources to explore them – this set me on ten-year path of enquiry, a legacy of inspiration from this book.
The heart of the book is the author's exploration of the first 100 years of Islam, from its origins to the fall of its first dynasty, the Umayyad Caliphate. While this is a subject that I felt I knew relatively well, Holland brings a revisionist perspective that is as fascinating as it is bound to be controversial.
In a long (rather dry) introductory section, Holland questions the validity of all early written sources, concluding that many long-accepted notions about the prophet Mohammed and what he created are suspect – not only does this cast a skeptical eye on the Koran (in addition to all the commentaries), but on the contours of his biography, including even the choice of Mecca as his birth place! In my reading, what this does is displace the establishment of the basic tenets and traditions of the Islamic religion onto later founders, who like Athanasius compiled the earliest texts for their own purposes, many of them for political expedience. He incorporates both philological and archaeological evidence to make his case.
This is the time when Islamic civilization replaced the classical ones as the ascendant power and cultural force. It was a profoundly eclectic process, incorporating many Judeo-Christian elements, but also the other competing traditions from Zoroastrian practices to Greco-Roman intellectual legacy (which Justinian had shut down). Though orthodox Islamists claim that Mohammed was the exclusive source of it, Holland decisively demonstrates that it was an amalgam of all the currents he places in context throughout the book. In my opinion, it is a masterful synthesis. The wielding of political power and military techniques are also covered, though more as evocations than analyses. By the end of the 8th century, both Persia and Byzantium were spent forces, though the latter Empire endured for 700 more years as a defensive bulwark.
I do have criticisms of the book. First, footnotes refer almost exclusively to primary sources, which deprived me of the treat of seeking good secondary sources to explore specific issues. There is a good bibliography, but only the titles appear. Second, it leaves a number of yawning gaps that the reader must explore in sources elsewhere – that I want to know so much more is certainly a sign of the book's success, but also signals that it could have been more dense. Third, the writing style is oddly elliptical, circling its subject and flowing into many tangents instead of following a linear narrative. While fun to read, it is at times difficult to follow his logic. Finally, of all his popular histories, this one is the most academic in tone, with many dry patches on methodology or obscure controversies, a bit to excess in my opinion but never overboard.
Below is a review of the classical side of this: