The ambitious scope of Shahid's major enterprise...already opens up many new prespectives on the great revolution of the seventh century, and will surely reveaal more. An important addition to our knowledge and understanding of Rome's and Byzantium's relations with the Arabs...The author is to be congratulated for producing a new and important view of the Arab world during these centuries and for making extensive use of scattered Byzantine, Syriac, Islamic and other sources to illustrate his thesis.