The fall of the Roman empire and the rise of Islam

Rome's collapse inspired many gripping tales, from Gibbon's history to Dune and Battlestar Galactica. The story of Arthur's Camelot has its origins in this era of political convulsion, as does a narrative that has taken on vast global importance – the foundation of Islam Whenever modern civilizations contemplate their own mortality, there is one ghost that will invariably rise up from its grave to haunt their imaginings. In February 1776, a few months after the publication of the first volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Edward Gibbon commented gloomily on the news from America, where rebellion against Britain appeared imminent. "The decline of the two empires, Roman and British, proceeds at an equal pace." Now, with the west mired in recession and glancing nervously over its shoulder at China, the same parallel is being dusted down. Last summer, when the Guardian's Larry Elliott wrote an article on the woes of the US economy, the headline almost wrote itself: "Decline and fall of the American empire". http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/mar/30/fall-roman-empire-rise-islam?newsfeed=true