As Lawrence I. Conrad explains in the general editor's Preface, the intention of the series, The Formation of the Classical Islamic World, is to present a critical selection of previously published articles on an aspect of the formative period of Islam, defined as A.D. 600–950. Each of the volumes is edited by an expert in a field of Islamic studies and is meant to serve as an introduction to the state of knowledge of a given topic and significant debates within the scholarship, conveying a variety of approaches. The two volumes under review here have a geographical rather than a thematic focus and together present forty articles on a range of topics having to do with the first three centuries of Islam on the Iberian peninsula. The two volumes on The Formation of al-Andalus are meant to be read together. “Part 1: History and Society” and “Part 2: Language, Religion, Culture and the Sciences” share overlapping themes, and their references and bibliographies are complementary.