Destiny Disrupted

THE MIDDLE WORLD 15

On the Eve oflslam: The Byzantine and Sassanid Empires

east to the foothills of the Himalayas. Between the two empires lay a strip
of disputed territory, the lands along the Mediterranean shore, where the
two world histories overlap and where disputes have been endemic. To the
south, in the shadow of both big empires, lay the Arabian Peninsula, in-
habited by numerous autonomous tribes. Such was the political configura-
tion of the Middle World just before Islam was born.