This volume had its origins in a public symposium on “Muhammad and the End of Antiquity” held at the University of Amsterdam in November 2015 under the auspices of the Zenobia Foundation, which aims to promote research into east-west relations in the Mediterranean region and to disseminate that research to a wide audience. This symposium resulted in a publication in 2018 with the title Muhammad in Late Antiquity (in Dutch). The volume under review represents a translation of that Dutch publication into English along with the addition of a few new contributions.

The editors provide a helpful introduction (chapter 1) that both sets the tone for the book and surveys its contents. Underpinning the introduction and all the chapters is the conviction that the rise of Islam is embedded within the context of the Late Antique Middle East and that the impact of the Arab conquests on the cultures of the region should be examined with this tenet in mind. The first two articles (chapters 2–3), by Clare Wilde and Johan Weststeijn, apply this principle to two sets of verses of the Qur’an, namely 30:2-5 on the reference to a Roman defeat “in a nearby land” and 16:17 on the status of intoxicating wine. In both cases, the authors consider what would make sense in terms of late antiquity. Wilde suggests relocating the event to Najran in south Arabia, where Christians were massacred in the early sixth century, and Weststeijn adduces the late antique classification of “drinks of life” into pure and impure and argues that the Qur’an always placed wine in the latter category, and so there was no transition from a positive to a negative evaluation of it, as is usually thought. The lack of clear unambiguous indications in the Qur’an means that these ideas can only be speculative, but they are certainly intriguing and merit serious consideration.

Chapter 4 comprises a posthumous English translation of Harald Motzki’s original Dutch article on the usefulness of “historical-critical research” on the biography of the prophet Muhammad. Although very short, the piece gives a fine example of Motzki’s famous isnad-cum-matn analysis, which involves an investigation of the chain of transmitters (isnad) of the chosen narrative and of the text (matn) itself and the relationship of the different versions of it to the individual transmitters. The conclusion drawn from this exercise is that the narrative selected by Motzki, concerning the image of Muhammad presented by his Meccan opponents, was formulated much earlier than the prophetic biography in which we find it, that of Ibn Hisham (d. 828), and earlier than his immediate source, Ibn Ishaq (d. 757), possibly going back to the early eighth century. However, observes Motzki, “the value of the story for a historical reconstruction of the life of the Prophet is […] limited”, for “the story only reflects the image, or one of the images, that Muslims formed during the first century after the Prophet’s death about the difficult phase of his activity in Mecca” (p. 86).

The next two chapters, 5–6, offer us rich food for thought about the impact of the Arab conquests on the conquered population and on the conquest elites themselves. Kevin van Bladel, in chapter 5, focuses on the twin processes of Arabicization and Islamization that over time led to a dramatic transformation in the socio-linguistic and socio-religious makeup of the Middle East. In contrast to many recent studies that focus on the role of identity in explaining the adoption of a new language and religion, van Bladel emphasizes the importance of paying attention to settlement patterns, pointing out that such changes are likely to occur more frequently where sizeable populations of Arabic-speakers and Muslims were to be found. Although this might appear obvious, it is often overlooked and so it is certainly worth reiteration. Peter Webb’s contribution focuses on the conquerors rather than on the conquered and makes several fascinating and insightful observations. Firstly, the term “Arab” is rarely encountered in pre-Islamic Arabic poetry, but it becomes very common in Islamic-period verse. Webb connects this with the rise of the Marwanid caliphate in the 690s and argues that this new sense of Arab community was part of “a strategy to convince the militarized elite of their unity under the caliphates of ‘Abd al-Malik and his sons” (p. 135). Secondly, this rise of Arabness coincided with an expansion of the geographical purview of the term Arabia, an entity that was considered to stretch from the Red Sea to the Gulf, from the Indian Ocean to the Euphrates. Thirdly, the Hajj and Islam become regarded as indicators of social belonging, as the property of a distinct Muslim community. Not everyone will agree with Webb’s conclusions, but this is a wonderfully innovative and thought-provoking paper, and deserves careful consideration.

Petra Sijpesteijn’s chapter, no. 7, concentrates on Egypt and on the rich papyrological evidence for Muslim Arab rule there. She concludes that “the identification markers used for the Arab-Muslim rulers indicate that they formed a group distinguishable and separate from the local populations, with their own linguistic, cultural, and administrative customs” (p. 185). She also notes that while there was a high degree of continuity in styles of government and administration from the Byzantine period, various modifications were introduced: “the Arab rulers, with the aid of their Egyptian partners, struck a delicate balance between conservatism and innovation, continuity and change, to facilitate a successful transition from a conquest society into a functioning Muslim empire” (pp. 190–191).

The last three chapters (8–10) offer fascinating insights into the phenomenon that is the subject of this book from very diverse perspectives. Ahmad al-Jallad takes a recently discovered Arabic inscription, “may God keep in mind Yazid the king” (dkr ’l-’lh yzydw ’l-mlk), to discuss the development of the Arabic script in the late pre-Islamic and early Islamic period and explores the likelihood that there were initially different traditions of Arabic writing that coexisted in these formative years. Constanza Cordoni looks at how Palestinian Jews responded to the establishment of Muslim Arab rule, highlighting the ways in which they became more hostile towards Ishmael as they strove to shore up the idea that Isaac was the favored son of Abraham and his descendants God’s chosen people. In addition, she considers the innovations in Jewish apocalyptic texts, as their authors sought to address the question of the place and role of a kingdom of Ishmael in the Jewish vision of history’s unfolding. Finally, Joanita Vroom challenges the widespread notion that the Arab conquests crippled the Byzantine economy by disrupting Mediterranean trade, using the example of recent archaeological work at the coastal settlements of Athens and Butrint to show how the Byzantine empire was able to some degree to adapt to the new economic reality and even to find new trading opportunities.

In sum, this volume is an excellent addition to the growing literature on the transformative effects worked by the Arab conquests on the late antique Middle East, taking into account a rich diversity of perspectives and participants.