Gods and Empires

A vivid narrative history of medieval religion across the globe — from the birth of Islam and the Crusades to Zen Buddhism, Sufi mysticism, and the cathedrals of Gothic Europe.

In the seventh century, a new religion erupted from the Arabian desert with a force that stunned the known world. Within a hundred years, Islam stretched from the Atlantic coast to the borders of China — the fastest religious expansion in recorded history. But Islam was only one chapter in a millennium when faith was not a private matter but the organizing principle of civilization itself.

Kingdoms of Faith is the second volume of Gods and Empires, a major narrative history of world religions. It tells the story of the medieval millennium across every inhabited continent and every major tradition — with the drama, humanity, and scholarly depth that the subject demands.

You will follow Muhammad from his orphan childhood to the revelations that launched a world religion, and witness the catastrophic split between Sunni and Shia that still shapes global politics. You will watch Crusaders wade through blood to reach the Holy Sepulchre, and see Saladin retake Jerusalem with a mercy that shamed his enemies. You will meet Rumi, the scholar who abandoned everything when he encountered a wandering mystic, and Maimonides, the philosopher who tried to reconcile faith with reason while fleeing persecution across three continents. You will enter Zen monasteries in Japan where enlightenment came through paradox and silence, and Hindu temple cities in India where erotic sculpture served as a path to the divine.

Subjects include: pre-Islamic Arabia, the life of Muhammad, the Quran, the Rashidun and Umayyad caliphates, the Sunni-Shia split, the Abbasid golden age, Islamic law and philosophy, Byzantine Orthodoxy, Carolingian Christianity, Chan and Zen Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism, classical Hinduism, Shankara and Tantra, the Great Schism of 1054, the Crusades, Gothic architecture and Scholasticism, the Franciscan and Dominican movements, Sufism, medieval Judaism and Kabbalah, Japanese religion in the samurai era, Hindu devotionalism, the Black Death, the Ottoman conquest, the Spanish Inquisition, the birth of Sikhism, Buddhism’s disappearance from India, Chinese religion under the Ming, African and Mesoamerican religions, and the Renaissance.