This history of the countries where Arabic is the main language of speech and culture, stretching from Morocco to Iraq, covers the period from the 7th to the 10th century, when the new religion of Islam carried the Arabic language with it and created an Arabic Muslim world. The story is carried up to the 1980s and the author shows how Arab history is intertwined with some of the great processes of world history. The author has also written Europe and the Middle East and The Emergence of the Modern Middle East.