Islam

What This Book Covers

1. Chapter One - Desert People, Desert Problems
2. Chapter Two - That One Guy from Mecca
3. Chapter Three - No Idol Zone
4. Chapter Four - Medina: First Draft of a Civilization
5. Chapter Five - How to Lose a Prophet and Start an Empire
6. Chapter Six - When Baghdad Became the Motherboard
7. Chapter Seven - Sunni, Shia, and the Sibling Rivalry That Never Ends
8. Chapter Eight - Sultans, Saladin, and Some Very Confused Crusaders
9. Chapter Nine - Ottomans: The Final Boss Caliphate
10. Chapter Ten - Colonial Whiplash
11. Chapter Eleven - Faith, Fear, and Fallout
12. Chapter Twelve - What’s It Like to Just Be Muslim?
13. Chapter Thirteen - The Future of the Faith
14. Chapter Fourteen - And Yet, It Moves

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE Desert People, Desert Problems BEFORE ISLAM, THE Arabian Peninsula wasn’t a country. Not even close. It was just a bunch of tribes, camels, and grudges all trying to outlast the sun. There were no national borders, no central government, and definitely no chill. You were either riding with your clan or watching your back for someone else’s. And if somebody disrespected your uncle’s cousin’s goat thirty years ago? That beef was still active. Arabia wasn’t fertile. Or lush. Or easy. But it was connected. At the crossroads between Byzantium and Persia, east and west, trade routes crisscrossed through the sand like veins. Caravans loaded with spices, incense, gold, and gossip all...