This full-color chronicle begins with the seventh-century origin of Islam in the desert oasis of Mecca and an account of the Bedouin society in which the Prophet Muhammad was raised. Then it moves on to explore the dynamic development of Islamic culture and society under the first ‘rightly guided’ caliphs and the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates, a golden age in which Islamic philosophy, science, and literature flourished to the full. The last chapter explores the main aspects of classical Islamic culture, looking particularly at theology and law, knowledge and science, mysticism and faith, and art and architecture.