Brendan’s Reviews > A History of the Muslim World: From Its Origins to the Dawn of Modernity > Status Update
Brendan
is on page 76 of 960
“We have indirect but telling evidence of the imaginative impact of Muhammad’s religion on the Arabs. After his death, and perhaps even before, one form taken by the short-lived rejection of Islam in Arabia was the appearance of no fewer than five false prophets—false, that is to say, in the eyes of our Muslim sources. There was one in the Yemen, one in Yamama, two—including a woman—among the nomads of
— Aug 05, 2026 08:19PM
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Brendan’s Previous Updates
Brendan
is on page 809 of 960
“The effect of rising foreign trade [in the 19th c] was not to increase demand for the manufactures of the Muslim world but rather to reduce it, sometimes drastically. Textiles produced by European factories were cheaper if not better, and they tended to crowd out those produced locally. The result was a process of deindustrialization in which these lands became suppliers of raw materials to industrial economies
— Sep 17, 2026 08:14PM
Brendan
is on page 798 of 960
“There was one feature of the demography of Palestine in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that worked in favor of Zionist settlement: the relative depopulation of the plains, as opposed to the hills. This was a widespread feature of the Mediterranean coastlands at the time, the result of a long term process of environmental degradation whereby the deforestation and erosion of the hillsides led to the spread
— Sep 16, 2026 09:20PM
Brendan
is on page 759 of 960
The 18th century Saudi/Wahhabi state “effectively closed down the pilgrimage for most Muslims—whom of course they considered to be unbelievers. This was too much for the Ottomans…the Ottoman sultan delegated the task of destroying the Saudi state to the upstart ruler of Egypt, Mehmed Ali Pasha. The invasion that followed ended Saudi rule in 1818, but it did not issue in a permanent conquest of the Najd. The
— Sep 15, 2026 08:15PM
Brendan
is on page 751 of 960
“As a fifteenth century Egyptian historian put it, ‘In the Yemen, under almost every stone there is a troublemaker, and a rebel in the shade of every tree.’”
— Sep 15, 2026 07:45PM
Brendan
is on page 524 of 960
“In political terms, the subcontinent was too large under premodern conditions to be brought together under the aegis of a single state. In fact the only state that has ever embraced the whole of India was the British Raj…Before that there had been occasional states of imperial dimensions based in the northern plains…but none of these states extended to the whole subcontinent. The normal condition of pre-Muslim
— Sep 02, 2026 07:41PM
Brendan
is on page 384 of 960
“To a much greater extent than appears from a glance at a map, Iran is landlocked: the core population and prime resources of the country are located deep in the interior, far from the arid coastlands of the Persian Gulf. Iran was thus less well placed to participate in the growth of trade on the Indian Ocean than the Ottoman Empire was to participate in that of the Mediterranean. The country was a victim of
— Aug 23, 2026 01:21PM
Brendan
is on page 381 of 960
Under the Safavids “Iran thus became the first and largest country in which Shi’ites were both politically and demographically dominant. One effect of this was to set it apart from the Muslim world at large, a development that gave Iran a certain coherence at the cost of poisoning its relations with its neighbors. This toxicity was not inevitable. When it suited them…the Ottomans could treat the Safavids as
— Aug 23, 2026 12:28PM
Brendan
is on page 340 of 960
“There are no significant Muslim populations among the non-Turkic peoples in or near the steppes, other than those of settled areas adjoining the Middle East…Whereas Islam swept the band of desert from the Persian gulf to the Atlantic, it did not do the same for the steppes. To the east, the Mongols in their homeland were not receptive to Islam. The 16th century saw their definitive adoption of Tibetan Buddhism
— Aug 22, 2026 11:56AM
Brendan
is on page 298 of 960
On the dependency of Mecca and Medina on foreign financial/material support:
“As late as the mid-11th century a traveler reported extensive ruins in Mecca and a population of a mere two and a half thousand. At this point one might have wondered whether the whole phenomenon of a world religion situating its major pilgrimage site deep in the Arabian desert was impractical to the point of being unsustainable. That it
— Aug 17, 2026 07:52PM
“As late as the mid-11th century a traveler reported extensive ruins in Mecca and a population of a mere two and a half thousand. At this point one might have wondered whether the whole phenomenon of a world religion situating its major pilgrimage site deep in the Arabian desert was impractical to the point of being unsustainable. That it
Brendan
is on page 264 of 960
Fascinating context on the adoption of Arabic script for the Persian language, which previously used the Aramaic script:
“There was a tendency in this part of the world to link choice of script with religious affiliation, no doubt reflecting a pattern whereby the acquisition of literacy took place within religious communities. Sogdian, for example, was written in three different scripts by Christians, Manichaeans,
— Aug 16, 2026 11:51AM
“There was a tendency in this part of the world to link choice of script with religious affiliation, no doubt reflecting a pattern whereby the acquisition of literacy took place within religious communities. Sogdian, for example, was written in three different scripts by Christians, Manichaeans,
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Aug 05, 2026 08:20PM
Najd, and one in Oman. This epidemic of copycat prophets is a backhanded compliment to the wide appeal of Muhammad’s mission in Arabia.”
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Fascinating discussion of the causes of Muhammad’s religious appeal in Arabia, along with the political maneuvers that founded the first Islamic state at Yathrib (Medina). One key factor was the widespread belief among Arabs (and surrounding peoples) that they were the Biblical Ishmaelites, descendants of Abraham’s other son. Muhammad tapped into this by presenting his revelations as a return to their true ancestral religion — his prophecies were not innovations, but a restoration of the Arab people from their long polytheistic error. In this sense, it is reminiscent of some of the radical Protestants, who argued that they were restoring Christianity to its original, austere form in the early years against the decadence of the Church. Like early Muslims, they were often iconoclasts (in the literal sense of the word) and dedicated to the text itself rather than later Christian traditions.