The ambitious scope of Shahîd's major enterprise.already opens up many new perspectives on the great revolution of the seventh century, and will surely reveal more. Shahîd shows himself a master of the literary sources that survive in abundance in Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Arabic. He has ranged more widely across the classical and oriental sources for Byzantium than anyone before him.These two books make 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.