Volume 38, Number 15 · September 26, 1991
In Search of the Arab Soul
By Shaul Bakhash
A History of the Arab Peoples
by Albert Hourani
Harvard University Press (Belknap Press), 551 pp., $24.95
To write a history of the Arabs as distinct from that of the other peoples with whom their affairs have been inextricably entwined is no easy matter. Since the seventh century and the advent of Islam, when the Arabs emerged from the Arabian Peninsula to conquer an empire in the Middle East, North Africa, and beyond, the history of the Arabs has been inseparable from the history of Islam. In the seventh century, the Arabian Peninsula was bordered to the east and north by two great empires, the Sassanian and the Byzantine. We do not know a great deal about the Arabs at this time. They were a people partially settled in oases towns, partially nomadic; they shared a form of loose tribal organization that emphasized the primacy of leading families and noble lineage. They worshiped a variety of deities, until Mohammed, establishing control over both Medina and Mecca, imposed a monotheistic religion. They were tied together primarily by language; several dialects of Arabic were beginning to resemble one another, and the Arabic of the Koran soon became a model for the Arabic that spread throughout the Middle East.
Review, 5984 words
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