A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone.
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.
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..
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.
A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone.
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
