Global InformationEarly Muslim conquests information
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 Expansion under Muhammad, 622–632 Expansion under the Rashidun Caliphate, 632–661 Expansion under the Umayyad Caliphate, 661–750 | |||||||||
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The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (Arabic: الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, romanized: al-Futūḥāt al-ʾIslāmiyya),[3] also known as the Arab conquests,[4] were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established a new unified polity in Arabia (known today as the first Islamic state) that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established on three continents (Asia, Africa, and Europe) over the next century. According to Scottish historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting."[5]
At their height, the territory that was conquered by the Arab Muslims stretched from Iberia (at the Pyrenees) in the west to India (at Sind) in the east; Muslim control spanned Sicily, most of the Middle East and North Africa, and the Caucasus and Central Asia.
Among other drastic changes, the early Muslim conquests brought about the collapse of the Sasanian Empire and great territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire. Reasons that would provide an explanation for the Muslim victories have been difficult to reconstruct in hindsight, primarily because only fragmentary sources have survived from the period. American scholar Fred McGraw Donner suggests that Muhammad's establishment of an Islamic polity in Arabia coupled with ideological (i.e., religious) coherence and mobilization constituted the main factor that propelled the early Muslim armies to successfully establish, in the timespan of roughly a century, one of the largest empires in history. Estimates of the total area of the combined territory held by the early Muslim polities at the conquests' peak have been as high as 13,000,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 sq mi).[6] Most historians also agree that, as another primary factor determining the early Muslim conquests' success, the Sasanians and the Byzantines were militarily and economically exhausted from decades of warfare against each other.[7]
It has been suggested that Jews and some Christians in Sasanian and Byzantine territory were dissatisfied and welcomed the invading Muslim troops, largely because of religious conflict in both empires.[8] However, confederations of Arab Christians, including the Ghassanids, initially allied themselves with the Byzantines. There were also instances of alliances between the Sasanians and the Byzantines, such as when they fought together against the Rashidun army during the Battle of Firaz.[9][10] Some of the lands lost by the Byzantines to the Muslims (namely Egypt, Palestine, and Syria) had been reclaimed from the Sasanians only a few years prior to the Muslim conquests.
- ^ a b Nile Green (12 December 2016). Afghanistan's Islam: From Conversion to the Taliban. Cambridge University Press. p. 47. ISBN 9780520294134.
- ^ a b M. A. Sabhan (8 March 1979). The 'Abbāsid Revolution. Cambridge University Press. p. 11. ISBN 9780521295345.
- ^ Kaegi (1995), Donner (2014)
- ^ Hoyland (2014), Kennedy (2007)
- ^ Buchan, James (21 July 2007). "Children of empire". The Guardian. London. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
- ^ Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihad State, the Reign of Hisham Ibn 'Abd-al Malik and the collapse of the Umayyads. State University of New York Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7.
- ^ Gardner, Hall; Kobtzeff, Oleg, eds. (2012). The Ashgate Research Companion to War: Origins and Prevention. Ashgate Publishing. pp. 208–209.
- ^ Rosenwein, Barbara H. (2004). A Short History of the Middle Ages. Ontario: Broadview Press. pp. 71–72. ISBN 978-1-55111-290-9.
- ^ Jandora, John W. (1985). "The battle of the Yarmūk: A reconstruction". Journal of Asian History. 19 (1): 8–21. JSTOR 41930557.
- ^ Grant, Reg G. (2011). "Yarmuk". 1001 Battles That Changed the Course of World History. Universe Pub. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-7893-2233-3.
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