This authoritative study of the Arabians and the Arabic-speaking peoples is a work of great thoroughness and insight which contains much to satisfy general readers as well as scholars. Here is the story of the rise of Islam in the Middle Ages, its conquests, its empire, its time of greatness and of decay, unrolling one of the richest and most instructive panoramas in history. For this reissue of the tenth edition, Walid Khalidi gives a brief overview of the history and content of the book, and emphasises the vital importance of Philip K. Hitti's magisterial and scholarly work to on-going attempts to bridge the Arab/Western cultural divide.This accessible text is ideal not only for undergraduate and postgraduate students of Arabic and Islamic studies, but also for the general reader and many scholars in various fields of history.New to this Edition:- Fully updated with the results of new research- Contains a new Preface by a leading academic in the field, which highlights the importance of this book to past and present attempts to close the cultural gap between the Arab and Western worlds