Book excerpt: In the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, the Arab nomads who inhabited a great stretch of the Near East from Aleppo in northern Syria to the southern shores of the Arabian peninsula continued a way of life virtually unchanged from the time of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century. Wars and raids were carried out by tribesmen armed like their ancestors with sword, mace and lance. Firearms came slowly to the Bedouin, and multishot weapons were very rare until the end of the 19th century.