Arab conquests show the power of prophecy and inspiration in midevil warfare

Ali Muhammed

   Trying to find a good book on the conquests of Arabs of the civilized world following the death of the prophet of Muhammad in 632. The cultural and linguistic effects of this Islamic expansion still reverberate today as the Arabs Despite technological disadvantages conquered a territory greater than the Roman Empire. Hugh Kennedy's history book called "The Great Arab Conquests" and this book shows and tells the story how the Arabs went forth and conquered much to the dismay of the haters like Andy Cruz and Jordon Morgan. Hugh shows how the early Muslim armies played the native populations hatred for their current rulers t their benefit and conquered replacing a oppressive system with one much less so. As long as these populations paid a special tax the Muslims left these groups alone if they followed a religion based on the books. Fire temples and other pagan worship were destroyed and replace with mosques and the opportunity to die for religion is what inspired these earl rimes that swept empires before them.

   The author goes through the major conquests starting with the conquest of Syria and Palestine as the Greek and Latin speaking elites were quickly displaced and forced back to the Mediterranean. Muhammad actually led the early raids into Syria that would eventually evolve into full scale invasions. Many short and decisive battles are recounted by this well researched history book as Byzantine power was reduced in the Levant. This victor could not have occurred without the alliance of Christian Arabs who felt more affinity with other Arabs than Armenian and Greek garrisons from a remote empire. There are many Arab names and victorious leaders hat are little known in world history in these decisive Islamic victories in Egypt and Syria and Kennedy does a good job describing the brilliant Muslim strategies and tactics that doomed the superior Byzantine empire against an enemy that was so inspired to spread a new faith and order. Their victory at Yarmuk would spell the end of major residence and turn Syria into a forever Muslim nation. Hugh goes on to describe further conquests in Iran and Iraq as Muslim armies continued to expand and follow the path of Alexander The Greats conquests. The Arab conquests over the Persians in Iraq were based on part of the. Equalities faced by Arabs and others  by the Persian rulers who basically had a rigged caste system one was born and stuck not much unlike the one that lasted much longer in India. The Arab conquests smashed this in Iraq as many tribes switched allegiances  and immediately became Muslims as this provided a better alternative than under Persian rule. He Arabs face little resistance from the Persians in conquering both modern day Iran and Iraq. The modest terms for peace after c quest is as responsible for the Persian and the Maghreb being Muslim to this day as anything else as many locals welcomed the regime change and cultural changes and attitudes hat they saw were an I pro meant against the long Established dynasties.