The old Empires 1. Emperor Justinian I and his retinue; mosaic c. AD 547.
2. A dish depicting King Yazdgard III (632-51) hunting; Sasanian school, seventh century.
3. Mushabbak Church, Syria.
4. A Zoroastrian fire-temple in Konur Siyah, Fars, Iran.
5. Taqi-kisrā, Iraq; the arch of the great palace at Ctesiphon.
6. The ruin of the Marib dam, Yemen.
7. A seventh-century Sasanian helmet.
8. A seventh-century Sasanian sword.
9. The arms and armour of Byzantine troops, as depicted on the ‘David Plates’.
10. A swing-beam siege engine in operation, from an early eighth-century wall-painting; tile fragment and modern sketch.
Landscapes and cities of the Conquests 11.Wadi Ducān.
12.The Syrian desert.
13.The ancient Roman walls of Damascus.
14.Jerusalem seen from the Mount of Olives.
15.The Zagros Mountains.
16.The walls of Bishapur.
17.Sistan.
18.Central Iranian landscape.
19.The ramparts of old Samarqand.
20.Old Bukhara seen from the walls of the citadel.
21.The Tashtakaracha Pass in the mountains south of Samarqand.
22.The view from the ancient walls of Balkh to the Hindu Kush.
23.Cordova, Spain.
24.Toledo, Spain.
25.The Ribat of Sousse, Tunisia.
26.A modern reconstruction of a Byzantine dromon.
27.Tyre, Lebanon.
28.The site of early Muslim Basra, Iraq.
29.The centre of old Kūfa, Iraq.
The Conquests remembered 30.The Prophet Muhammad preparing for his first battle against the Quraysh of Mecca at Badr in 634; early fourteenth-century Persian manuscript.
31.The assassination of Chosroes II in 628; fifteenth-century Persian manuscript.
32.The battle of Qādisiya; fifteenth-century Persian book painting.
33.The Legend of the True Cross, by Piero della Francesca (c. 1415- 92).
1. The world on the eve of the Muslim conquests, x
2. Limit of Muslim rule in 750, xii
3. Syria and Palestine, xv
4. Iraq, xvi
5. Egypt, xvii
6. Iran, xviii
7. North Africa, xx
8. Transoxania, xxii
9. Spain, xxiii
