This book offers a new and bold explanation for these momentous events. It investigates the growth of a community of believers around their prophet in an Arabian oasis before looking at how their interactions with surrounding nomads set in store truly transformative developments. These developments took on a deeper significance given wider changes witnessed in the late antique Near East, which created the context for the earthshattering events of the seventh century. unites the near and far horizons of early Islam into one story. It embraces a broad range of sources and comparative evidence to set new courses in the study of Late Antiquity and early Islam.