Hmm interesting.
His assertion that there is almost no archaeological evidence for a Muslim conquest in the Middle East or for the transition from Byzantine to Arab rule (34:40 of the video) stands in direct contrast to a recent book I read by Emmet Scott (Mohammad & Charlemagne Revisited). A book that Billy put me onto in fact.
Scott states in numerous parts of his book (pg.132-133, 159, 173,-181) that many towns in the Middle East and North Africa were abandoned or destroyed in the wake of the Islamic conquest and that there is a famous archaeological layer known as “the younger fill” that coincides roughly with the Islamic conquests and after this point there is virtually no archaeological evidence whatsoever for urban life in any of the major cities of the Mediterranean.
Scott goes so far as to state that there is no archaeological trace of Islamic civilization whatsoever from the period between 650-950 CE (pg. 180) and that it is only after this period that the cities of the region appear to be repopulated and real archaeological traces of urban life return.
Here is a direct quote from his book:
Although I agree that the Arabs brought immense destruction to North Africa and indeed to Egypt, Syria and Anatolia, any reader of these reports must nonetheless find it strange that virtually all archaeology should disappear from these areas for three centuries. For disappear it did. We are told after all. That Islam did not have a Dark Age – this was something only Europe is supposed to have experienced. Yet archaeology of all kinds disappears from the regions controlled by Islam as surely as it does from Europe. (pg. 178)
I am somewhat skeptical of Scott’s assertions but I have searched online and have not yet found anybody who has offered a critique of this book. I think I am going to send an email to this Fred Donner and find out if he has read this book, what he thinks of it and if he can weigh in on this discrepancy.
It's worth a shot right? He will probably not even read my email, but you never know....
Topic: How Islam Began