Arabs: a 3,000-year history of peoples, tribes and empires

Cover page -- Halftitle page -- Series page -- Title page -- Copyright page -- Epigraph -- Dedication -- CONTENTS -- ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAPS -- FOREWORD THE WHEEL AND THE HOURGLASS -- Maps -- INTRODUCTION GATHERING THE WORD -- ORATORS AND PREDATORS -- IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE POET -- THE WORD SPREADS -- THE BOOK OF THE STICK -- ATAURIQUE -- EMERGENCE 900 BC-AD 600 -- CHAPTER ONE VOICES FROM THE WILDERNESSE ARLIEST ARABS -- THE ISLAND OF THE ARABS -- ARABIAN LANDSCAPES -- SOWERS AND MILKERS -- DESERT AND SOWN IN DIALOGUE -- A PEOPLE APART -- LOOKING IN FROM THE OUTSIDE -- 'S1LM WAS HERE' -- BORN OF THE RIMTH BUSH -- ARABS OR 'ARAB? -- SONS OF SAM -- ARABS HAVE A WORD FOR IT (AND OFTEN VERY MANY WORDS) -- SEARCHING FOR A UNIFIED VOICE -- CHAPTER TWO PEOPLES AND TRIBES SABAEANS, NABATAEANS AND NOMADS -- 'WHEN IN ZAFAR . . .' -- THE ORIGINAL ARABS (BUT NOT JUST YET) -- PEOPLE AND PILGRIMAGE -- THE CLINCH OF CIVILIZATIONS -- CARAVAN TOWNS -- THE RECORD OF THE ARABS -- JUST THIEVES -- BORN OF THE GATHERED WIND -- 'ALL THE ARABS' -- CHAPTER THREE SCATTERED FAR AND WIDE THE CHANGING GRAMMAR OF HISTORY -- THE RAT WITH IRON TEETH -- THE ACTIVE VOICE OF HISTORY -- NO FIXED ABODE -- RIVALS IN THE GREAT GAME -- LK NW VWLZ -- THE KING'S BURIED POEMS -- THE IDENTITY WITHIN -- CHAPTER FOUR ON THE EDGE OF GREATNESS THE DAYS OF THE ARABS -- A CURTAIN FALLS - AND RISES -- GULFS APART -- WALLS AND WEAPONS OF WORDS -- THE INSTIGATORS -- THE WANDERING KING -- PUSHERS TO THE FARTHEST BOUNDS -- POLITICS AND POETICS -- IMAGINE THERE'S NO HEAVEN -- THE COLLECTIVE MEMORY -- VISIONS OF UNITY -- ADVENT -- REVOLUTION 600-630 -- CHAPTER FIVE REVELATION, REVOLUTION MUHAMMAD AND THE QUR'AN -- THE BLACK STONE -- THE MOTHER OF EMPORIA -- THE NAVEL OF THE EARTH -- MUHAMMAD -- RECITE! -- THE WORD MADE BOOK -- RHYME IS REASON -- AND THE WORD DWELT AMONG US, AND WE IN IT.

Foreword.The wheel and the hourglass --Introduction.Gathering the word --Emergence: 900 BC-AD 600 --1.Voices from the wilderness: earliest Arabs --2.Peoples and tribes: Sabaeans, Nabataeans, and nomads --3.Scattered far and wide: the changing grammar of history --4.On the edge of greatness: the days of the Arabs --Revolution: 600-630 --5.Revelation, revolution: Muhammad and the Qur'an --6.God and Caesar: the state of Medina --Dominance: 630-900 --7.Crescaders: openings-up --8.The kingdom of Damascus: Umayyad rule --9.The empire of Baghdad: Abbasid sovereignty --Decline: 900-1350 --10.Counter-cultures, counter-caliphs: the empire breaks up --11.The genius in the bottle: the hordes close in --Eclipse: 1350-1800 --12.Masters of the monsoon: Arabs around the Indian Ocean --Re-emergence: 1800-Now --13.Identity rediscovered: awakenings --14.The age of hope: Nasserism, Ba'thism, liberation, oil --15.The age of disappointment: autocrats, Islamocrats, Anacharchs --Afterword.In the station of history.

This kaleidoscopic book covers almost 3,000 years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia. Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments-from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad's use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic-have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today's politically fractured post-Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity