xvi ••• Prefacepeople—not only students—care about what is going on now in the Mid-
dle East and how things came to be that way.
Any work of art or scholarship follows conventions. When writing a
book that introduces a recondite subject to students and general readers, its
authors must tell the audience what these conventions will be. The English
system of weights and measures is giving way to the metric system; this
book uses both. Prices expressed in non-American currencies, ancient or
modern, are given in 2005 US dollar equivalents. All dates are based on the
Gregorian calendar. But let no one forget that Muslims follow a twelve-
month lunar calendar dated from the year in which Muhammad and his
associates moved from Mecca to Medina. Quite naturally, they use this cal-
endar when they teach or learn Islamic history. Conversion between the
two systems is cumbersome and prone to error. When dates appear in
parentheses following a ruler's name, they refer to the span of his or her
reign. Personal names in languages using the Arabic script are transliter-
ated according to International Journal of Middle East Studies system, mi-
nus the diacritics, except for a few persons and places mentioned often in
the press. The same applies to a few technical terms that cannot be trans-
lated simply and accurately into English.
Our wives, Louise Goldschmidt and Janet Amighi, deserve special ac-
knowledgment for their encouragement, patience, advice, and love. We re-
main accountable for all errors of fact or interpretation. We welcome, as
always, readers' comments and advice. The Internet and the word processor
facilitate the book's revision. When we can reach one another through cy-
berspace, textbook writing at last resembles letter writing, which comes
close to what this textbook was at its genesis, a series of personal letters ad-
dressed to a hypothetical student. If you wish to reach us by computer,
Arthur Goldschmidt's email address is [email protected] and Lawrence David-
son's is [email protected].
The work of a great teacher never perishes, hence Arthur Goldschmidt's
original dedication of this book to an elementary school teacher and prin-
cipal whose knowledge, ideas, and enthusiasm live on in thousands of her
former pupils, now joined by Lawrence Davidson's dedication to Henry
Blumenthal and Humphry Osmond, about whom he writes: "Both men
were elegant humanizers and I am much the better teacher, scholar, and
human being for knowing them."
We have also enjoyed working together, even when we could only agree
to disagree.
Arthur Goldschmidt Jr. Lawrence Davidson