This atlas depicts the course of the expansion of Islam, in pictorial form, all over the world, from initial conquests to the present day. The drama of the events that brought a religion born in the Arabian Desert, and its vehicle, the Arabic language and script, into far-flung regions of the world, is illustrated and described using maps and texts. The historical processes active in each separate theatre of action are indicated, from the outset to the present day. Islam has experienced checks and reversals, as in Spain and Eastern Europe, temporarily in the Crusades, and in aspects of European colonial rule. Yet it remains an active and still-spreading phenomenon whose influence in different parts of the world is profound, and, to many non-Muslims, mysterious and little understood.