Christian C. Sahner

We were on Saturday, and you are on Sunday. Now your Sunday has come.” So goes an oft-quoted warning from the Jews of Iraq about the fate of the country’s minorities. “Saturday,” of course, refers to the Jewish Sabbath, but also to the period in the mid-twentieth century when Iraq’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In by Hugh Kennedy Da Capo, 421 pages, $27.95 Standing on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in what is modern-day Morocco, the Arab general Uqba must have felt a mixture of exultation and disappointment. In the fifty years . . . . Continue Reading »