The Umayyad Empire (644–750 CE) was the first Islamic empire and one of the largest empires of ancient and medieval times, extending over 5,000 miles between the Atlantic Ocean in the West and the Indian Ocean in the East. This book traces the empire’s origins to the Arabian Peninsula and the Syrian Steppe in the centuries before Islam. It explores the dynamics that shaped this formative era for the history of the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.
News
23 June 2025
Professor Barak Kushner gave this talk at the Rethinking Empires and Trans-Imperial History Conference at Ewha Woman’s University, Seoul, Korea, 19 June 2025.
20 June 2025
Dr Elizabeth Monier, Assistant Professor of Modern Arabic Studies at the University of Cambridge, was interviewed by Bloomberg TV on 20 June.
05 June 2025
On Friday, 30 May, Professor Barak Kushner gave a lecture at Sun Yat Sen University on the history of ramen and Sino-Japan relations.
05 June 2025
Professor Kushner did a long interview on ramen and other topics which has been published in three parts.
03 June 2025
A new documentary on the legendary Sigmund Freud, with the director, Yair Qedar
- 1 of 14
