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Islamic conquests
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Image:Age of Caliphs.gif 350px|thumb|right|Age of the Caliphs
{{Campaignbox Byzantine-Arab}}
{{Campaignbox Muslim Conquest Persia}}
{{Campaignbox Muslim Conquest Iberia}}
The initial '''Islamic conquests''' (
632-
732) began with the death of
Muhammad, were followed by a century of rapid
Arab and
Islamic expansion, and ended with the
Battle of Tours—resulting in a vast Islamic
empire and area of influence that stretched from
India, across the
Middle East and
North Africa, to the
Pyrenees.
Edward Gibbon writes in ''History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'':
:Under the last of the
Umayyad dynasty Ommiades, the
Arab Arabian empire extended two hundred days’ journey from east to west, from the confines of
Tartary and
India to the shores of the
Atlantic Ocean. And if we retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their writers, the long and narrow province of
Africa, the solid and compact dominion from
Fargana to
Aden, from
Tarsus to
Surat, will spread on every side to the measure of four or five months of the march of a
caravan. We should vainly seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of
Augustus and the
Antonines; but the progress of
Islam the Mahometan religion diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners and opinions. The language and laws of the
Koran were studied with equal devotion at
Samarcand and
Seville: the
Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of
Mecca; and
arabic language the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the
Tigris.
The individual conquests, together with their beginning dates:
Byzantine-Arab Wars: 632-718
{{islam}}
{{main|Byzantine-Arab Wars}}
{{Section-stub}}
* The conquest of
Syria,
635
* The conquest of
Armenia,
639
*
Islamic conquest of Egypt The conquest of Egypt, 639
*
Islamic conquest of North Africa The conquest of North Africa,
642
* The
Second Arab siege of Constantinople 717 -
718
Conquest of Persia: 636-651
{{main|Islamic conquest of Persia}}
In the reign of
Yazdegerd III, the last
Sassanid ruler of
Persia, a Muslim invasion force secured a decisive defeat of the Persian army at the
Battle of al-QÄ?disiyyah in 636. But the final military victory didn't come until
642 when the Persian army was destroyed at
Nahavand (Nehavand). Then, in 651, Yazdgird III was murdered at Merv, present-day
Turkmenistan, ending the dynasty. His son Pirooz and many others fled into exile in China.
Conquest of Afghanistan: 637-709
{{main|Islamic conquest of Afghanistan}}
In
637, five years after the death of
Muhammad,
Arab Muslims had shattered the might of the
Persian
Sassanians and began to move towards the lands east of
Iran:
Herat was captured in 652. By 709 all of Aryana came under Arab control. Regions around
Kabul were annexed from the Hindu
Shahis as well. But the invaders encountered pockets of resistance from local tribespeople, a process that would continue for centuries, and
Tang China and
Tibet mounted an opposition to the Arab invasion to prevent Muslim incursions into Central Asia.
Conquest of North Africa: 640-709
{{main|Islamic conquest of North Africa}}
Conquest of South Asia: 664-712
{{main|Islamic conquest of South Asia}}
During the period of
Rajput supremacy in north
India, which lasted from the
seventh century seventh to the
twelfth century twelfth centuries, the first Muslim effort toward invasion was made in
664. Forces led by
Mohalib began launching raids from
Persia, striking
Multan in the southern
Punjab region Punjab in what is today
Pakistan. Mohalib penetrated as far as the ancient capital of the
Maili and returned with
prisoner of war prisoners of war but he didn't come to conquer.
Later, in
711, the
Umayyad caliph in
Damascus sent an expedition to
Baluchistan (an arid region on the
Iranian Plateau in Southwest Asia, presently split between Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan) and
Sindh (presently a province of Pakistan bordering on Baluchistan, Punjab, and
Rajasthan, India). This expedition was led by
Muhammad bin Qasim and went as far north as Multan. He then invaded South Asia on the orders of
Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef, the governor of
Iraq. His armies defeated Raja Dahir at what is now
Hyderabad, Pakistan Hyderabad in
Sindh and established Islamic rule in
712. Like
Alexander the Great before him, Qasim traveled and subdued the whole of what is modern Pakistan, from Karachi to
Kashmir, reaching the borders of Kashmir within three years.
Conquest of Iberia: 711-718
{{main|Islamic conquest of Iberia}}
The conquest of Iberia commenced when the
Moors (mostly
Berbers with some
Arabs) invaded
Visigothic
Christian Iberian peninsula Iberia in the year
711 Common Era CE. Under their Berber leader,
Tariq ibn Ziyad, they landed at
Gibraltar on
April 30 and worked their way northward. Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his superior,
Musa ibn Nusair. During the eight-year campaign most of the
Iberian Peninsula was brought under
Islamic rule—save for small areas in the northwest (
Asturias) and largely
Basque people Basque regions in the
Pyrenees. This territory, under the Arab name
Al-Andalus, became part of the expanding
Umayyad empire.
End of the Conquests: 718-750
After their success in overrunning Iberia, the conquerers moved northeast across the Pyrenees but were ultimately defeated by the
Frank Charles Martel at the
Battle of Tours in
732. Meanwhile, the Christian ''
Reconquista'' or reconquest of Iberia became established with
Pelayo of Asturias' victory at the
Battle of Covadonga in
722.
Then, in the east, in an internecine war between rival Arab dynasties, the Umayyads were overthrown in 750 by the
Abbasids, after which most of the Umayyad clan were massacred. But one Umayyad prince,
Abd-ar-rahman I, escaped to Al-Andalus and, a few years later, founded a new Umayyad dynasty there.
See also
*
Amr ibn al-A'as
*
Caliph
*
Khalid ibn al-Walid
*
Umayyad Caliphate
References
*Edward Gibbon, [http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/g/gibbon/edward/g43d/chapter51.html ''History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire''] Chapter 51
*Fred Donner, [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/donner.html ''The Early Islamic Conquests''] Chapter 6
Category:Islamic conquests
Category:Middle Ages
ar:انتشار الإسلام
de:Islamische Expansion
nl:Arabische Rijk
{{WPMILHIST}}
{{WPMILHIST Middle Ages task force}}
Category:Islamic history
Category:History of North Africa
Category:History of Europe
Category:History of the Middle East
Category:Medieval warfare
Category:Middle Ages
Category:Wars
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