This new edition of one of the most widely used course books on Islamic civilizations around the world has been substantially revised to incorporate the new scholarship and insights of the last twenty-five years. Ira Lapidus' history explores the beginnings and transformations of Islamic civilizations in the Middle East and details Islam's worldwide diffusion. The history is divided into four parts. Part I is a comprehensive account of pre-Islamic late antiquity; the beginnings of Islam; the early Islamic empires; and Islamic religious, artistic, legal and intellectual cultures. Part II deals with the construction in the Middle East of Islamic religious communities and states to the fifteenth century. Part III includes the history to the nineteenth century of Islamic North Africa and Spain; the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires; and other Islamic societies in Asia and Africa. Part IV accounts for the impact of European commercial and imperial domination on Islamic societies and traces the development of the modern national state system and the simultaneous Islamic revival from the early nineteenth century to the present.

Professor Hastings also compares the relation of Christian history to the comparable development of Islam in Africa.

"Africas Islamic Experiences- History, Culture, and Politics Edited by Ali A. Mazrui, Patrick M. Dikirr, Robert Ostergard Jr., Michael Toler & Paul Macharia This volume is rich in historic surprises about the fortunes of Islam in African experience, Islam first arrived in African while the Prophet Muhammad, the Founder of the religion, was still alive, Ethiopia provided asylum to early Arab Muslims on the run from persecution by fellow Arabs in pre-Islamic Mecca, Today Nigeria has more Muslims than any Arab country, including Egypt. This volume explores not just Islam's impact upon Africa but also Africa's impact on Muslim history. The book explores the geographical expansion of the religion, the revival of ancient Muslim rituals, and the politicization and radicalization of Islam in both colonial and pre-colonial Africa. Is Islam compatible with democracy? Can African Islam peacefully coexist with Christianity? How has Islam in Africa influenced architecture, Literature, race relations, gender relation, and cultural interpenetrations between Arabs and Black Africans? In this era of globalization is Islam a positive vanguard force or a trigger for parochialism and backward-looking nostalgia? In this era of terrorism and counter-terrorism can Islam be mobilized as a force for stability or has the religion been irretrievably hijacked by its own worst radicals? This volume does not try to answer all the questions, but it helps to lay the basic groundwork for understanding Islam much better in this new age.