• In the Shadow of the Sword

  • The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire
  • By: Tom Holland
  • Narrated by: Steven Crossley
  • Length: 18 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.2 out of 5 stars (648 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
In the Shadow of the Sword  By  cover art

In the Shadow of the Sword

By: Tom Holland
Narrated by: Steven Crossley
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $20.20

Buy for $20.20

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

The evolution of the Arab empire is one of the supreme narratives of ancient history, a story dazzlingly rich in drama, character, and achievement. In this exciting and sweeping history - the third in his trilogy of books on the ancient world - Tom Holland describes how the Arabs emerged to carve out a stupefyingly vast dominion in a matter of decades, overcoming seemingly insuperable odds to create an imperial civilization.

With profound bearing on the most consequential events of our time, Holland ties the exciting story of Islam's ascent to the crises and controversies of the present.

©2012 Tom Holland (P)2015 Tantor
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

Critic reviews

"Elegantly written.... A veritable tour de force. ( The Wall Street Journal)

What listeners say about In the Shadow of the Sword

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    332
  • 4 Stars
    193
  • 3 Stars
    74
  • 2 Stars
    36
  • 1 Stars
    13
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    365
  • 4 Stars
    126
  • 3 Stars
    50
  • 2 Stars
    18
  • 1 Stars
    9
Story
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    290
  • 4 Stars
    152
  • 3 Stars
    74
  • 2 Stars
    31
  • 1 Stars
    14

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Misleading title

What disappointed you about In the Shadow of the Sword?

Two thirds of the book are a history of all of the cultural events leading up to the birth of Islam. It describes well the vacuum of power that existed in the 5th and 6th century that allowed Islam to expand, almost at will. It says nothing about how the split between Sunni and Shia occurred. It tells nothing about the conquest of Constantinople. It tells nothing of how Islam was finally stopped in eastern Europe. I was primarily interested in Islam, not the other "children of the book"

Has In the Shadow of the Sword turned you off from other books in this genre?

No. I have to be more careful reading reviews.

What does Steven Crossley bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

It was a great read.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

It was a great review of the history of Christianity, Judaism and the empires of Europe and East Asia. I wasn't looking for that in such detail.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

19 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A vivid, illuminating trip through late antiquity

This tale sparkles with personalities, beliefs, collisions, and richly-staged history, moving seamlessly between these different levels. The author is a great storyteller (in wonderful sync with the narrator's style), not so much an exhaustive expositor of various possible views of these things. It starts a bit awkwardly, I thought, as it veers off for quite awhile into the unreliability of sources for modern verifiable historical details on various prophets and prophetic religions of antiquity. This is repeated as needed when a new religion or sect is introduced. But suddenly, these issues are mostly shelved, and we are immersed in the main mode of storytelling which is vivid and virtuoso. I am happy to hop on for the ride, vowing to return to more placid, plodding scholarly explanations another time. Meanwhile, I feel as if I was in the times alongside the people, and my sense of all these peoples' origins is brought to shimmering life. Islam through most of the story is merely anticipated, as we spend much time in other regions of the near- and middle- east and among non-Arab peoples and their sects. The portrait of Constantinople and particularly its Roman overlords was fantastic. Here are Jews, Christians, Pagans, Zoroastrians, yet others, and of course, Arabs as their civilization gathered itself and quickly took amazing flight.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A Tour of Late Antiquity

If you've enjoyed Holland's Rubicon and Dynasty, please do yourself a favor and wander into the gorgeous landscape painting of late antiquity he creates in this work. His evocation of the Shah's disastrous expedition against the Hepthalites will dig its hooks into you, I guarantee. Be forewarned, Holland spends most of his time setting the stage, the actual Islamic conquest isn't set in motion until the final third of the book. But, if you've ever been curious about that hazy time between the fall of the western roman empire and the rise of islam, Holland will flesh it out for you in gilded detail.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Disjointed

Maybe if I had a hard copy of the book it would all flow in a decent way, but the narrative as I followed it was full of sidesteps and jumped about chronologically. I understand that for a full understanding of the background, one must actually follow the background.... presented as it was it felt more like a Tarantino film than a history, in that it seemed very out of sequence and hard to follow.

Frankly I almost returned the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

very confusing, not sure I know more now

Was originally assigned this in a class on Islam and the Arab nations, or some such, which I ended up dropping ... but a few years later decided that since the book was on Audible I'd get it and listen... I vaguely remember our professor had only assigned various chapters telling us the book goes WAY off topic, and boy does it. It almost feels like the writer knew a lot about Christian and Jewish civilizations of that period, and wanted to throw all that in since what we actually about about the development of the nations under the umbrella of Islam is kind of sketchy. So hard to follow, and harder to remember because there's so many details and no central storyline. its read ok

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Not Holland's best work

I really wanted to love this book. I'm a big fan of Tom Holland's work in written and audio format, but this book was difficult to follow. I could not tell what the presentation style was because it did not seem to follow a thematic progression and it certainly wasn't a narrative history. It just seemed to meander through time and place. While the minute to minute listening was classic Holland, I had no idea how anything fit with what I had heard previously or would hear subsequently.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Good But Too Much Filler

It seems like half the book is spend setting up the background for the rise of the Islamic empire. Perhaps that's because (and I think the author has said as much) there really aren't that many source documents.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Interesting

This book is not really about the rise of Islam so much as the interplay between Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians and Muslims in the Middle East around the time of the fall of Rome and rise of Islam. There are some controversial claims that need to be taken with a grain of salt, but the story as a whole is the best overview of the world's major monotheistic religions as they were shaped for the modern world that I have been able to find.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars

Just finished a very dense history of Islam

This history of the rise of Islam, was fascinating, though the language was way too thick and difficult to follow. Due to its educational value, something like this book is a worthwhile alternative to fantasy books like Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones - because the story in this book really happened. The first two-thirds of the book tells the background that led up to Islam. I never realized that a horrible plague around 500 AD demolished the Christian Roman empire as well as the Persian, making way for the Arabs to step in and spread Islam. Over time, Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastranism, Islam, and others, all rose and fell in dominance and popularity, each success or failure being attributed to God, Allah, Jesus, or what-have-you, each group thinking God was on their side against the others. And it continues to this day. We are often still very medieval in our beliefs.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

good but not his best

Beginning is good, end is good but the middle is like wading through a swamp. Personally I had to power through the middle few chapters where Holland left Islam to talk about the rise of Christianity. While it may have been needed for the story, I got bogged down personally on a subject he has a while other book on, which I'm about to listen to next.

Overall it's not a big enough of an issue to not reccomend the book, still listen! You shall enjoy.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful