Arabic for "The Book", Adonis worked on this book, a three-volume epic that adds up to almost two thousand pages, from 1995 to 2003. In "Al-Kitab", the poet travels on land and through the history and politics of Arab societies, beginning immediately after the death of the prophet Muhammad and progressing through the ninth century, which he considers the most significant period of Arab history, an epoch to which he repeatedly alludes. Al-Kitab provides a large lyric-mural rather than an epic that attempts to render the political, cultural, and religious complexity of almost fifteen centuries of Arab civilization.