This course examines the history of the Near East from 50 BCE to 750 CE. The course addresses a very critical period of transition for the Near East, one in which a variety of religious experiences structured the life of people in classical times and late antiquity. It analyzes broad social issues such as the changing patterns of urban rural interaction, the growing power and influence of marginal societies such as the peasants of Mesopotamia and the Bedouin of Arabia, the transformation of traditional authority and the emergence of effective new symbols of power. The course ultimately traces the significant developments by which the Near Eastern societies were transformed from classical Roman and Imperial Persian paradigms into a unified caliphate under the new religion of Islam.