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Reddit mentions of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire

Sentiment score: 6
Reddit mentions: 7

We found 7 Reddit mentions of In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire. Here are the top ones.

In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
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ColorWhite
Height8 Inches
Length5.2 Inches
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Release dateFebruary 2013
Weight1.15 Pounds
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Found 7 comments on In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire:

u/[deleted] · 11 pointsr/IAmA

History geek here, so I started looking into this a bit.

First, most sources I find online have a pretty heavy ideological / religious slant of one kind or another. Wikipedia claims that "Mohammed" comes from the semitic root H-M-D, meaning "praise", out of which similarly originated "Ahmad". Remember that Mohammed/Muhammad/whatever was a member of the Quraysh tribe, which had controlled the economy of Mecca for some time prior to the rise of Islam (as well as the Kaaba, which was used by a number of pre-Islamic religions as an object of worship), so whatever origin his name had, it probably wasn't anything new.

There are loads of claims that it originated with a Hebrew term found in the Song of Solomon 5:16, which is often mistranslated as "beautiful", but I wasn't able to find any real evidence supporting that. This response (no idea what it's doing on stackexchange) debunks a lot of the assertions made around the name due to lack of sources.

The problem is that a lot of Islamic / Arab history prior to about the 7th century was orally transmitted, meaning that a lot of the Islamic canon written down in the 8th and 9th centuries was probably tailored to fit geopolitical and cultural requirements of that age - similar to a lot of religious texts. So there aren't a lot of reliable academic sources, as opposed to, say, Roman, Greek, or even Egyptian writings. Tom Holland's book In The Shadow of The Sword (it's not nearly as good as _Persian Fire, so beware) goes into a lot of this - he also gave a really good interview on the History of Byzantium podcast if you want the tl;dr version. He even argues that the "modern" Mohammed may even have been a composite construct.

I looked a bit more, and this looks like it's a decent collection of references, but that's not an answer to your question.


And, finally, here's a page with a ton of sources on pre-Islamic uses of the name.

Whee. I love the Internet.

u/captaindisguise · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

I recommend the book In the Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland. It is written for laymen like us and he gives a pretty good picture of where the contemporary skeptical scholarship is with regards to the origins of Islam.

The following documentary was also produced by Tom Holland that became very controversial in the UK. Of course, the doumentary is not as detailed or thorough as the book - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2sCIZPOeJ8

Edit: The following is a lecture by Dr. Fred Donner who is a contemporary scholar of Islamic origins - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RFK5u5lkhA

Edit2: - I will also link this thread. You can find my comment where I summarize some of the evidences for the theory that Islam did not originate in Hijaz/Makkah - http://www.reddit.com/r/exmuslim/comments/24707u/the_theory_that_islam_did_not_originate_in/

u/Alethius · 4 pointsr/ancientrome

It's not focused entirely on the Eastern Roman Empire (it deals heavily with the Sasanid Empire and Arabia as well), but Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire is a great read that tries to explore the general religious and political themes of Late Antiquity. He spends over 200 pages detailing the developments that moulded Christianity, Judaism, and Zoroastrianism in this time, and the way those eventually fed into the evolution of Islam. He also discusses current events, like wars, legal reforms, and plague, all of which had wide-ranging effects. Due to the scope of the topics covered, it's necessarily a pretty broad and general overview of the centuries you're interested in; if you want to really delve into specifics, I'm sure other suggestions will have narrower subjects. But I can't recommend Holland enough; he's engaging and accessible, heavily focused on context without getting caught up in trying to sell his own narratives, and the pages are peppered with fascinating anecdotes about individuals and events that really give you a feel for an age that seems so remote but has had such a lasting impact on our world.

u/kixiron · 3 pointsr/history

I had a post regarding my recommended books on the rise of Islam. I'll post it here again for your benefit:

> Here's the best ones: Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism: A History and Robert Hoyland's In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire

> Edit: I have read the two books aforementioned, but I'd also recommend this book, which I haven't read: Hugh Kennedy's The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. All these books fit your criteria. I also have Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, but I think this is the least recommendable because of the controversy swirling around it and the documentary it spawned. But it is interesting nevertheless.

I hope this will help!

EDIT: I'll add more recommendations, in regards to the Golden Age of Islam:

u/therigdenking · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

> why u say hadith and sirah? I thought the sirah is just the lifestory of muhammad and this is found in the ahadith. Also the tafsirs use hadith. And i think there r many different sirahs, all leaving out stuff xD by modern authors etc.

When I say hadith, I generally mean sahih bukhari, sahih muslim etc. When I say sirah I mean biography of Muhammad by ibn ishaq/ibn hisham, one of the earliest biographies of Muhammad.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Prophetic_biography

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ibn_Ishaq#/Biography_of_Muhammad

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ibn_Hisham

> I dont want to correct u, but i want to understand xD

No you have pretty good knowledge actually. Feel free to correct me whenever I make a mistake. I want to learn the Islam as objective as possible, as I have no intention to practice taqiyya lol

> Such fascinating ideas on how islam came to be xD gonna get that book

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Sword-Birth-Global-Empire/dp/0307473651

This is the book. You may find it a pdf online maybe, or order it online. But definitely read it.

About last part, yeah I agree. Even though the cult leader Muhammad we encounter in hadith and other sources seem so real, the fact that there's so little written evidence about Islam's origins is a something to think about. When Umar(supposedly) conquered Jerusalem in 640, why didn't he wrote down a Quran? Why didn't they write a biography of Muhammad, or their history in general? Holland again says that for example even when barbarian tribes invaded Roman Empire, like the Germanic tribes in Britain, even their king stopped and wrote down books. But these people, whose motivation is built upon a "holy book", don't write down shit for at least 100 years. The name Muhammad start to appear in 690-710. The first manuscripts of Quran came from 8th century, why? And even then they are incomplete. And they were distributed in Umayyad era, while traditional muslim belief is that Uthman distributed those copies. Where is Uthman's Quran, the first Quran? Again, the belief is that a Umayyad ruler burned it. WTF lol! There's no original Quran. How are we going to be sure that Umayyads didn't sit down, observed Judaism, Christianity and wrote down a book according to that, while putting info from various other sources?(embryology in the Quran and other stuff)

u/KarnickelEater · 1 pointr/news

It does not work like that. AT ALL. Starving people can't think, have no patience, no strategy, nothing that is required for success. The worst (or best) they could manage is random rioting, during which of course only other lower or at most middle class people will be (randomly) targeted. I just read that the Shia were like that in the 7th century, they'd revolt several times against the Umayyads and always get their asses kicked because they never quite thought this through. (This fantastic history book, just FYI. Covers the (final) end of the Roman empire (in the East) and the establishment of Islam as a religion. Tom Holland is must-read, always.)

u/Procrastinator_5000 · 1 pointr/history

Very nice work!

This reminds me very much of the book In the shadown of the sword by Tom Holland. Which in my opinion is an excellent read!

Perhaps I buy the pdf and otherwise the paperback. Good work!