I began to investigate this topic in the middle of the 1970s, after giving a lecture on it in the University of Chicago Islamic Civilization course, and a paper at the First Annual Byzantine Studies Conference at the Cleveland Museum in October, 1975. I have subsequently explored some of my conclusions in other courses at the University of Chicago, at the Byzantine Studies Conference, and in conversations and consultations with undergraduate and graduate students.

I wish to acknowledge the financial assistance of a number of institutions that have helped me to complete Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests: the American Council of Learned Societies for a Fellowship (which was supported by funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities) that I used in Paris in 1978–9; the Division of Social Sciences of the University of Chicago for almost annual Divisional Research grants during the course of this project; the Penrose Fund of the American Philosophical Society for grants in 1979 and 1985; the American Research Center in Egypt for a grant that I used in Cairo in the summer of 1979; the Center for Byzantine Studies, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library of Harvard University for a Fellowship for Autumn, 1980; the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars for a Fulbright Fellowship to Syria and Jordan during the summer of 1984; and the School of Historical Studies, the Institute for Advanced Study, for a Membership in 1984–5.