Unlike the steppes of Central Asia, from where federations of pastoralists have repeatedly irrupted into the settled lands to their south, the Arabian Peninsula has only ever generated one episode of trans-regional conquest – the so-called ‘Islamic conquests’ or ‘Arab conquests’ of the 630s and 640s and after. Hence, this unique event presents a problem. Whereas some patterns can be discerned in the interaction between the predominantly nomadic peoples of the grasslands of Central Asia and the settled agrarian lands of Europe and Asia, no such pattern is immediately apparent in the interaction between the Arabian Peninsula and the world to the north. Nonetheless, this exceptional event is explicable. A dual perspective, which takes in the long-term interactions between the settled world and the steppe, together with the short-term context of the geopolitical circumstances of the later sixth and early seventh centuries, provides the best framework for understanding it.

In the first overview chapter, events in the Middle East until the beginning of the sixth century are set out. From the fourth century ce, interactions between the empires to the north and the peoples of the Syrian Desert led to new political formations among the Arabic-speaking pastoralists there, often in the context of the adoption of local forms of Christianity, distinct from those promoted in the Roman Empire. Meanwhile, in the far south of the Peninsula, the kings of Himyar promoted Judaic monotheism and built alliances with pastoralists in southern and central Arabia. In the second chapter, the escalating conflict between Rome and Iran and the weakening of Himyarite power are the immediate contexts that explain the expansion of the influence of the West Arabian region of the Hijaz in the late sixth century and the success of the mission of the Prophet Muhammad in the early seventh.

The third chapter shows how Muhammad and his allies reshaped the religious and political landscape of Arabia and how his immediate successors extended their influence into the Roman and Sasanian lands of Syria, Egypt, Iraq and western Iran. Members of the Umayyad clan, most of whom are said to have opposed Muhammad until his victory became inevitable, were leading participants in the wars of the 630s and 640s.