Ira Lapidus is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of California, Berkeley. Throughout his long and illustrious career he has published extensively. His abiding interest has been the relationship between the family, the tribe and the city, and this is exemplified in his current work and previous publications, including Contemporary Islamic Movements in Historical Perspective (1983), Muslim Cities in the Later Middle Ages (1984), Islam, Politics and Social Movements, co-edited with Edmund Burke (1988) and A History of Islamic Societies (1988, 2002).

Introduction to the history of Islamic societies; Book I. Part I. The Beginnings of Islamic Civilizations, The Middle East from c.600 to c.1000: 1. Middle Eastern societies before Islam; 2. Historians and the sources; 3. Arabia; 4. Muhammad: preaching, community, and state formation; 5. Introduction; 6. The Arab-Muslim conquests and the socio-economic bases of empire; 7. Regional developments: economic and social changes; 8. The caliphate to 750; 9. The 'Abbasid empire; 10. Decline and fall of the 'Abbasid empire; 11. Introduction: religion and identity; 12. The ideology of imperial Islam; 13. The 'Abbasids: caliphs and emperors; 14. Introduction; 15. Sunni Islam; 16. Shi'i Islam; 17. Muslim urban societies to the tenth century; 18. The non-Muslim minorities; 19. Continuity and change in the historic cultures of the Middle East; Book I. Part II. From Islamic Community to Islamic Society: Egypt, Iraq and Iran, 945-c.1500: 20. The post-'Abbasid Middle Eastern state system; 21. Muslim communities and Middle Eastern societies: 1000-1500 CE; 22. The collective ideal; 23. The personal ethic; 24. Conclusion: Middle Eastern Islamic patterns; Book II. The Global Expansion of Islam from the Seventh to the Nineteenth Century: 25. Introduction: Islamic institutions; 26. Islamic north Africa to the thirteenth century; 27. Spanish-Islamic civilization; 28. Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries; 29. States and Islam: North African variations; 30. Introduction: empires and societies; 31. The Turkish migrations and the Ottoman empire; 32. The post-classical Ottoman empire: decentralization, commercialization, incorporation; 33. The Arab regions of the Middle East; 34. The Safavid empire; 35. The Indian subcontinent: the Delhi sultanates and the Mughal empire; 36. Islamic empires compared; 37. Inner Asia from the Mongol conquests to the nineteenth century; 38. Islamic societies in Southeast Asia; 39. The African context: Islam, slavery, and colonialism; 40. Islam in Sudanic, Savannah, and forest west Africa; 41. The West African jihads; 42. Islam in East Africa and the European colonial empires; 43. Conclusion: the varieties of Islamic societies; 44. The global context.