This volume provides an updated history of Sudan from the first contacts between the Muslim Arabs and the Christian Nubians to the invasion by the forces of Muhammad 'Ali Pasha. It includes information on the period before Turko-Egyptian invasion especially concerning the coming of Islam.

A History of the Sudan by Martin Daly and PM Holt, sixth edition, has been fully revised and updated and covers the most recent developments that have occurred in Sudan over the last nine years, including the crisis in Darfur.The most notable developments that this text covers includes the decades-long civil war in the South (with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005); the emergence of the Sudan as an oil-producer and exporter, and its resulting...

The book will be welcome for tackling the Crusades from a fresh but important angle; the relations of the Crusader states with their neighbours, both Christian (the Byzantines) and, especially, Islamic – the rulers of Damascus, Aleppo, Baghdad, Cairo etc. It contributes to the very fashionable approach of seeing the Crusades as a prime example of early European colonialism, and investigating them much more for their social, political and ethnic impact on the region than for their ostensi...

First Published in 1973. This volume brings together a number of studies concerned with the Near East and its history from the sixteenth century. They fall into three groups. The first is concerned with English Arabists of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, and particularly with Edward Pococke. The papers in the second group deal with the history of the Nilotic Sudan, and especially attempt to exploit the sparse source-materials available on the Funj Sultanate and to throw som...

The kaleidoscopic political changes during the years covered by this volume include the rise and fall of the Crusader states, the expansion of the Mongol empire, the rise of the Mamluk sultanate and of its ultimate conquerors, the Ottomans. To all of these Professor Holt is a clear and skilful guide. He principally utilises, and to some extent reinterprets, the medieval Arabic sources, to present a picture which differs in important respects from the conventional western-orientated view.

From a master historian, the definitive account of history's first terroristsAn offshoot of the Ismaili Shi'ite sect of Islam, the Assassins were the first group to make systematic use of murder as a political weapon. Established in Iran and Syria in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, they aimed to overthrow the existing Sunni order in Islam and replace it with their own. They terrorized their foes with a series of dramatic murders of Islamic leaders, as well as o...

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The Saljuq Turks' defeat of the Byzantines at Manzikert opened the way for their conquest of Anatolia and domination of the Near East.On 26 August 1071 a large Byzantine army under Emperor Romanus IV met the Saljuq Turk forces of Sultan Alp Arslan near the town of Manzikert. The battle ended in a decisive defeat for the Byzantine forces, with the Byzantine emperor captured and much of his fabled Varangian guard killed. This battle is seen as the primary trigger of ...

How the Mongol invasions of the Near East reshaped the balance of world power in the Middle AgesFor centuries, the Crusades have been central to the story of the medieval Near East, but these religious wars are only part of the region’s complex history. As The Mongol Storm reveals, during the same era the Near East was utterly remade by another series of wars: the Mongol invasions.In a single generation, the Mongols conquered vast swaths of the Nea...

This is an introduction to the history of the Muslim East from the rise of Islam to the Mongol conquests. It explains and indicates the main trends of Islamic historical evolution during the Middle Ages, and will help the non-Orientalist to understand something of the relationship between Islam and Christendom in those centuries.

From a renowned historian who writes with "maximum vividness" (The New Yorker) comes the most authoritative, readable single-volume military history of the brutal struggle for the Holy Land.Nine hundred years ago, a vast Christian army, summoned to holy war by the Pope, rampaged through the Muslim world of the eastern Mediterranean, seizing possession of Jerusalem, a city revered by both faiths. Over the two hundred years that followed, Islam and Christian...

This biography of the 12th century Islamic military leader provides a fascinating view of the Crusades and the Medieval Muslim world.Saladin was a Kurdish military leader who led the fight against the Crusades and rose to become first Sultan of Egypt and Syria. He united warring Muslim lands, reconquered the bulk of Crusader states and faced King Richard I of England in one of the most famous confrontations in medieval warfare. His extraordinary character and career...