← All writings Series · 7 parts

History of Islam

  1. 01 The World Before Islam Before any Muslim army moved, Rome and Persia spent 26 years destroying each other, and Arabia was already full of Jews and Christians. Part 1 of a sourced history: what Islam actually spread into.
  2. 02 The Conquests One Arabian city in 632; an empire reaching from Spain to the Indus by 750. What the documented record of the Islamic conquests actually shows, and what popular history gets wrong in both directions.
  3. 03 Who Built the Golden Age? The Islamic Golden Age was real, and so is the question of attribution. Syriac Christian translators, Sabian scholars, Persian and Central Asian scientists, Jewish physicians, and Abbasid patrons all belong in the ledger.
  4. 04 The Crusades in Context What primary sources and working crusade historians actually establish about the First Crusade: the real provocation record, the charter evidence on motive, the massacres of 1096, and the sack of 1099.
  5. 05 The Slave Trades Nobody Taught You The Islamic world's slave systems moved millions of people over thirteen centuries, from the Sahara to a fishing village in Ireland. An honest accounting, with numbers that survive hostile fact-checking and a ledger that indicts Christendom too.
  6. 06 The Long Divergence In 1000 AD, Córdoba and Baghdad led the world; by 1800 the reversal was nearly total. The two explanations Christians usually repeat are myths. The real story is institutional, and it is more hopeful.
  7. 07 Sacred Ground: What Conquerors Do to Holy Places From the Dome of the Rock to Hagia Sophia to the church for sale down the street: what the historical record actually shows about conquest and holy places, in both directions.