Sea of faith: Island and Christianity in the medieval Mediterranean world - Stephen O'Shea

The epic Mediterranean story of the first thousand years of conflict and mutual enrichment
between Christianity and Islam

The long, shared history of Christianity and Islam began, shortly after Islam emerged in the earlyseventh century A.D., with a question: Who would inherit the Greco-Roman world of the Mediterranean? Sprung from the same source—Abraham and the Revelation given to the Jews—the two faiths played out over the course of the next millennium what historian Stephen O'Shea calls "a sibling rivalry writ very large."

At times acrimonious, at other times harmonious, the encounter between the two creeds encompasses a dazzling array of historical figures, and provides a backdrop to much of what informs, and misinforms, public opinion on present-day conflicts. Recounting seven major battles between the two faiths encircling the Mediterranean—Yarmuk, Poitiers, Manzikert, Hattin, Las Navas de Tolosa, Constantinople, and Malta—and the long periods of rich coexistence in between, Stephen O’Shea shines vital new light on their distant past while offering invaluable perspective on their ongoing contest for spiritual and political primacy.