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106-692: Arabic had been spoken in the region since the Muslim conquest of the South Caucasus at the beginning of the eighth century. It was brought there by Arab settlers consisting mostly of military staff, merchants and craftsmen from Iraq and Syria , and was used as an official language. It experienced decline after the weakening of the Caliphate in the thirteenth century and was gradually replaced by Persian / Tat and Azerbaijani . Groups of Arabs (mostly from Yemen ) continued to immigrate to southern Dagestan influencing

212-571: A Muslim Where are your valiant warriors and priests Where are your hunting parties and your feats? Where is that warlike mien and where are those Great armies that destroyed our county's foes? Count Iran as a ruin, as the lair Of lions and leopards. Look now and despair Right from the start of the caliphate, it was realized that there was a need to write down the sayings and story of Muhammad, which had been memorized by his followers before they all died. Most people in Arabia were illiterate, and

318-605: A Muslim emissary. Muhammad died in 632 and was succeeded by Abu Bakr , the first caliph with undisputed control of the entire Arab peninsula after the successful Ridda Wars , which resulted in the consolidation of a powerful Muslim state throughout the peninsula. Byzantine sources, such as Short History written by Nikephoros , claim that the Arab invasion came about as a result of restrictions imposed on Arab traders curtailing their ability to trade within Byzantine territory, and to send

424-607: A century after the Hijrah (start of Islamic calendar). Military raids against India had been undertaken by the Muslims as early as Umar 's reign (634–644), but the pace of expansion in the region was initially slow: in 636, an Arab naval expedition attacked Broach , which had come under the control of the Chalukyas following the submission of Jayabhata of the Gurjaras of Lata , and Thana , but it

530-410: A collection of militarily weak but geographically inaccessible principalities of Persia. It took decades to bring them all under control of the caliphate. In what is now Afghanistan—a region where the authority of the shah was always disputed—the Muslims met fierce guerrilla resistance from the militant Buddhist tribes of the region. Despite the complete Muslim triumph over Sasanid Iran as compared to

636-845: A decade does suggest serious deficiencies with the Visigothic kingdom, though the limited sources make it difficult to discern the precise reasons for the collapse of the Visigoths. Another Germanic people who founded a state upon the ruins of the Western Roman Empire were the Franks who settled in Gaul . Like the Visigoths, the Frankish cavalry played a "significant part" in their wars. The Frankish kings expected all of their male subjects to perform three months of military service every year, and all serving under

742-509: A guerrilla war was waged by Christians in the hilly countryside of north-western Syria supported by the Byzantines. At the same time, the Byzantines began a policy of launching raids via sea on the coast of the caliphate with the aim of forcing the Muslims to keep at least some of their forces to defend their coastlines, thus limiting the number of troops available for an invasion of Anatolia. Unlike Syria with its plains and deserts — which favored

848-553: A hill, and two wings of cavalry on either side. Little is known about the military forces of the Christian state of Ethiopia other than that they were divided into sarawit professional troops and the ehzab auxiliaries. The Ethiopians made much use of camels and elephants. The Berber peoples of North Africa had often served as a federates (auxiliaries) to the Byzantine Army. The Berber forces were based around

954-714: A holy war in defense of the Christian faith and the Wood of the Holy Cross, as splinters of wood said to be from the True Cross were known, had been used to inspire Christian fighting zeal. The idea of a holy war against the "fire worshipers", as the Christians called the Zoroastrians, had aroused much enthusiasm, leading to an all-out effort to defeat the Persians. Nevertheless, neither empire

1060-508: A mutiny in Medina in 656 and 'Uthman's murder . Uthman's successor Ali was faced with a civil war, known to Muslims as the fitna , when the governor of Syria Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan revolted against him. During this time, the first period of Muslim conquests stopped, as the armies of Islam turned against one another. A group known as the Kharaji decided to end the civil war by assassinating

1166-507: A painful manner. The charge against him was that he had persuaded Heraclius not to allow the Saracens to trade from the Byzantine country and send out of the Byzantine state the thirty pounds of gold which they normally received by way of commercial gain; and for this reason they began to lay waste the Byzantine land. Some scholars assert that this is the same Sergius, called "the Candidatus", who

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1272-516: A period of more than three decades. Under al-Rashid, a few minor members of the Abbasid family were also appointed as governors of the province. Over the course of the mid-ninth century, Abbasid authority in Sind gradually waned. A new era in the history of the province began in 854, when Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz al-Habbari, a local Arab resident of Sind, was appointed to govern the country. Shortly after this,

1378-407: A reflection of the religious zeal of the conquerors and evidence of divine favor. The theory that the conquests are explainable as an Arab migration triggered by economic pressures enjoyed popularity early in the 20th century but has largely fallen out of favor among historians, especially those who distinguish the migration from the conquests that preceded and enabled it. There are indications that

1484-648: Is known about the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah other than it lasted for several days by the banks of the river Euphrates in what is now Iraq and ended with the Persian force being annihilated. Abolishing the Lakhmid Arab buffer state had forced the Persians to take over the desert defense themselves, leaving them overextended. As a result of al-Qadisiyyah, the Arab-Muslims gained control over the whole of Iraq, including Ctesiphon ,

1590-686: Is known in the Muslim world as the "Victory of Victories". As with the Levant, this was the first time since the collapse of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC with the Battle of Opis , that Mesopotamia was ruled again by Semitic-speaking people, after centuries of Persian ( Achaemenid , Parthian and Sasanian empires), and Roman-Greek ( Macedonian , Seleucid the Roman empires) ruling periods. After Nahavand,

1696-452: Is now Afghanistan, indicates a weakening of the power of the Shahinshah (King of Kings), suggesting the empire was already breaking down at the time of the Muslim conquest. Persian society was rigidly divided into castes with the nobility being of supposed "Aryan" descent, and this division of Persian society along caste lines was reflected in the military. The azatan aristocracy provided

1802-695: The Arab conquests , were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad , the founder of Islam . He established a new unified polity in Arabia based in Medina 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,

1908-543: The Arabic language is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Azerbaijan -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Early Muslim conquests This is an accepted version of this page Byzantine Empire Sassanid Persia Caucasus Other regions The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests ( Arabic : الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة , romanized :  al-Futūḥāt al-ʾIslāmiyya ), also known as

2014-576: The Battle of the Masts off Cape Chelidonia in Anatolia in 655, the Muslims defeated the Byzantine fleet in a series of boarding actions. As a result, the Byzantines began a major expansion of their navy, which was matched by the Arabs, leading to a naval arms race. From the early 8th century onward, the Muslim fleet would launch annual raids on the coastline on the Byzantine empire in Anatolia and Greece. As part of

2120-569: The Church of the Holy Sepulchre to remain, with the caliph praying on a prayer rug outside of the church. The loss to the Muslims of Jerusalem, the holiest city to Christians, proved to be the source of much resentment in Christendom. The city of Caesarea Maritima continued to withstand the Muslim siege—as it could be supplied by sea—until it was taken by assault in 640. It was the first time since

2226-651: The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and for making Damascus into the capital of a "superpower" that stretched from Portugal to Central Asia, covering the vast territory from the Atlantic Ocean to the borders of China. The rapidity of the early conquests has received various explanations. Contemporary Christian writers conceived them as God's punishment visited on their fellow Christians for their sins. Early Muslim historians viewed them as

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2332-468: The Nile Delta were protected by water and because Amr lacked the machinery to break down city fortifications. The Arabs laid siege to Babylon, and its starving garrison surrendered on 9 April 641. Nevertheless, the province was scarcely urbanized and the defenders lost hope of receiving reinforcements from Constantinople when the emperor Heraclius died in 641. Afterwards, the Arabs turned north into

2438-561: The Ridda Wars prompted the Byzantines to send a major expedition into southern Palestine , which was defeated by the Arab forces under command of Khalid ibn al-Walid at the Battle of Ajnadayn in 634. Ibn al-Walid had converted to Islam around 627, becoming one of Muhammad's most successful generals. Ibn al-Walid had been fighting in Iraq against the Sasanians when he led his force on a trek across

2544-571: The Siege of Carthage , that parts of North Africa and Iberia were reconquered by Semitic-speaking people. Among other drastic changes, the early Muslim conquests brought about the collapse of the Sasanian Empire and great territorial losses for the Byzantine Empire . Explanations for the Muslim victories have been difficult to discover, primarily because only fragmentary sources have survived from

2650-572: The "mighty" walls built by the Emperor Theodosius II in the 5th century proved their worth. The majority of the people in Syria remained Christian, and a substantial Jewish minority remained as well; both communities were to teach the Arabs much about science, trade and the arts. The Umayyad caliphs are well-remembered for sponsoring a cultural "golden age" in Islamic history—for example, by building

2756-437: The "real military leader" at Yarmuk "under the nominal command of others". Syria was ordered to be abandoned to the Muslims with Heraclius reportedly saying: "Peace be with you Syria; what a beautiful land you will be for your enemy". On the heels of their victory, the Arab armies took Damascus again in 636, with Baalbek , Homs , and Hama to follow soon afterwards. However, other fortified towns continued to resist despite

2862-509: The 1920s mostly by upper-class feudals as a second or third language, as well as a language of literature, politics and written communication. North Caucasian resentment of the Russians for robbing them of their national history is doubled for the Daghestanis by the forced loss of their Arabic patrimony. In the nineteenth century, it was considered that the best literary Arabic was spoken in

2968-579: The Abbasids as their nominal suzerains, the effective authority of the caliph largely disappeared and the Habbarids were de facto independent. In spite of their loss of effective control over Sind, the Abbasid government continued to formally appoint governors to the province. In 871 the caliphal regent Abu Ahmad ibn al-Mutawakkil invested the Saffarid Ya'qub ibn al-Layth with the governorship of Sind. In 875

3074-424: The Abbasids, and had to be subdued by force of arms. In general, however, Abbasid authority in Sind remained effective during this period of their rule. Under the Abbasids, Arabs continued to frequently occupy the governorship, but over time the selections became somewhat more diverse. Under the caliphs al-Mahdi (775–785) and al-Rashid (786–809), non-Arab clients ( mawali ) were sometimes appointed to Sind. In

3180-449: The Arabs had a strong culture of remembering history orally. To preserve the story of Muhammad and to prevent any corruptions from entering the oral history, Abu Bakr had ordered scribes to write down the story of Muhammad as told to them by his followers, which was the origin of the Quran. Disputes had emerged over which version of the Quran was the correct one and, by 644 different versions of

3286-632: The Byzantine Empire, but much of the cavalry were either recruited from "martial" peoples in the Balkans or in Asia Minor or alternatively were Germanic mercenaries. Most of the Byzantine troops in Syria were indigenae (local), and it seems that at the time of the Muslim conquest, the Byzantine forces in Syria were Arabs. In response to the loss of Syria, the Byzantines developed the phylarch system of using Armenian and Arab Christian auxiliaries living on

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3392-475: The Byzantine and Sasanian empires competed for influence in Arabia by sponsoring clients, and in turn Arabian tribes sought the patronage of the two rival empires to bolster their own ambitions. The Lakhmid kingdom which covered parts of what is now southern Iraq and northern Saudi Arabia was a client of Persia, and in 602 the Persians deposed the Lakhmids to take over the defense of the southern frontier. This left

3498-523: The Byzantine empire. Control of Egypt meant that the caliphate could weather droughts without the fear of famine, laying the basis for the future prosperity of the caliphate. The Byzantine Empire had traditionally dominated the Mediterranean and the Black Sea with major naval bases at Constantinople , Acre , Alexandria and Carthage . In 652, the Arabs won their first victory at sea off Alexandria, which

3604-414: 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. Arabia was a region that hosted several cultures, some urban and others nomadic Bedouin . Arabian society was divided along tribal and clan lines, with the most important divisions being between the "southern" and "northern" tribal associations. Both

3710-569: The Caspian Sea when an invading Muslim army was almost wiped out by the cavalry of the Khazar Khanate , and, seeing a chance to take back Egypt, the Byzantines launched an amphibious attack which took back Alexandria for a short period of time. Though most of Egypt is desert, the Nile Delta has some of the most productive and fertile farmland in the entire world, which had made Egypt the "granary" of

3816-464: The Mediterranean region, being used in religious ceremonies. However, the conversion of the Mediterranean world to Christianity had significantly reduced the demand for these commodities, causing a major economic slump in southern Arabia which helped to create the impression that Arabia was a backward region. Little is known of the pre-Islamic religions of Arabia, but it is known that the Arabs worshipped gods such as al-Lat, Manat, al-Uzza and Hubal, with

3922-687: The Middle East, India and even from as far away as China. In turn, the Yemeni were great sailors, travelling up the Red Sea to Egypt and across the Indian Ocean to India and down the east African coast. Inland, the valleys of Yemen had been cultivated by a system of irrigation that had been set back when the Marib Dam was destroyed by an earthquake in about 450 AD. Frankincense and myrrh had been greatly valued in

4028-487: The Muslim position in Sind, al-Hakam constructed the military garrison of al-Mahfuzah , which he made into his capital ( miṣr ). Shortly after this, his lieutenant Amr , a son of Muhammad ibn Qasim, built a second city near al-Mahfuzah, which he called al-Mansura . This latter city eventually became the permanent administrative capital of Sind, and it served as the seat of the Umayyad and Abbasid governors. The names of

4134-407: The Muslim shipwrights switched from the hull-first method of building ships to the frame-first method. After an Arab incursion into Sasanian territories, the shah Yazdgerd III , who had just ascended the Persian throne, raised an army to resist the conquerors, although many marzbans refused to help. The Persians suffered a devastating defeat at the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah in 636. Little

4240-591: The Muslims were forced to retreat from Hind. The next governor, al-Hakam ibn Awana , vigorously campaigned in Hind and initially achieved some victories, but he too experienced a reversal of fortune and was eventually killed. Raids into Hind continued after al-Hakam's death, but no major territorial gains were achieved, and the Muslim presence in India remained largely restricted to the Indus valley region. As part of his efforts to secure

4346-456: The Muslims, while the people retreated into castles and fortified towns when the Muslims invaded; instead, Byzantine forces ambushed Muslim raiders as they returned to Syria carrying plunder and people they had enslaved . In the frontier area where Anatolia met Syria, the Byzantine state evacuated the entire population and laid waste to the countryside, creating a no man's land where any invading army would find no food. For decades afterwards,

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4452-467: The Nile Delta and laid siege to Alexandria. The last major center to fall into Arab hands was Alexandria, which capitulated in September 642. According to Hugh Kennedy , "Of all the early Muslim conquests, that of Egypt was the swiftest and most complete. [...] Seldom in history can so massive a political change have happened so swiftly and been so long lasting." In 644, the Arabs suffered a major defeat by

4558-484: The Persian state collapsed with Yezdegird III fleeing further east and various marzbans surrendering to the Arabs. As the conquerors slowly covered the vast distances of Iran punctuated by hostile towns and fortresses, Yazdgerd III retreated, finally taking refuge in Khorasan , where he was assassinated by a local satrap in 651. In the aftermath of their victory over the imperial army, the Muslims still had to contend with

4664-412: The Persians exposed and over-extended, helping to set the stage for the collapse of Persia later that century. Southern Arabia, especially what is now Yemen, had for thousands of years been a wealthy region that had been a center of the spice trade . Yemen had been at the center of an international trading network linking Eurasia to Africa, and Yemen had been visited by merchants from East Africa, Europe,

4770-583: The Quran were accepted in Damascus , Basra , Hims , and Kufa . To settle the dispute, the Caliph Uthman had proclaimed the version of the Quran possessed by one of Muhammad's widows, Hafsa , to be the definitive and correct version, which offended some Muslims who held to the rival versions. This, together with the favoritism shown by 'Uthman to his own clan, the Banu Umayya , in government appointments, led to

4876-448: The Turkic peoples of Central Asia the "most formidable foes" faced by the Muslims. The Jewish Turkic Khazar khanate , based in what is now southern Russia and Ukraine, had a powerful heavy cavalry. The Turkic heartland of Central Asia was divided into five khanates whose khans variously recognized the shahs of Iran or the emperors of China as their overlords. Turkic society was feudal with

4982-462: The Umayyad Caliphate, the responsibility for selecting governors to the province was assigned to the governor of Iraq , or, if that position was vacant, to the governor of Basra . Unless he received specific commands from the caliph, the governor of Iraq had the authority to appoint and dismiss governors to Sind and he was in charge of supervising their activities in the province. According to

5088-511: The Umayyad period, the caliphate had a standing army, including the elite Ahl al-Sham ("people of Syria"), raised from the Arabs who settled in Syria. The caliphate was divided into jund , or regional armies, stationed in the provinces being made of mostly Arab tribes who were paid monthly by the Diwan al-Jaysh (War Ministry). The infantry of the Byzantine army continued to be recruited from within

5194-426: The archangel Gabriel had told him that he was the last of the prophets continuing the work of Jesus Christ and the prophets of Tanakh . After coming into conflict with the elite of Mecca, Muhammad fled to the city of Yathrib, which was renamed Medina . At Yathrib, Muhammad founded an Islamic state and by 630 conquered Mecca. The prolonged and escalating Byzantine–Sasanian wars of the 6th and 7th centuries and

5300-487: The arms race, both sides sought new technology to improve their warships. The Muslim warships had a larger forecastle , which was used to mount a stone-throwing engine. The Byzantines invented Greek fire , an incendiary weapon that led the Muslims to cover their ships with water-soaked cotton. A major problem for the Muslim fleet was the shortage of timber, which led the Muslims to seek qualitative instead of quantitative superiority by building bigger warships. To save money,

5406-410: The caliphal governors of Sind are preserved in the histories of Khalifa ibn Khayyat and al-Ya'qubi . Some differences exist between the two authors' versions; these are noted below. The Futuh al-Buldan by al-Baladhuri , which focuses on the military conquests of the early Muslim state, also contains the names of many of the governors who served in Sind. At the time of the Abbasid Revolution , Sind

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5512-464: The caliphate of al-Ma'mun (813–833), the governorship was given to a member of the Persian Barmakid family, and the province remained under their rule for a number of years. After the Barmakids, the Turkish general Itakh was given control of Sind, although he deputed the actual administration of the province to an Arab. During this period several members of the prominent Muhallabid family served in Sind; their combined administrations spanned over

5618-415: The capital city of the Sassanids. The Persians lacked sufficient forces to make use of the Zagros Mountains to stop the Arabs, having lost the prime of their army at al-Qadisiyyah. The Persian forces withdrew over the Zagros, and the Arab army pursued them across the Iranian plateau, where the fate of the Sasanian Empire was sealed at the Battle of Nahavand in 642. The crushing Muslim victory at Nahavand

5724-417: The cavalry, the paighan infantry came from the peasantry and most of the greater Persian nobility had slave soldiers, this last being based on the Persian example. Much of the Persian army consisted of tribal mercenaries recruited from the plains south of the Caspian Sea and from what is now Afghanistan. The Persian tactics were cavalry based with the Persian forces usually divided into a center, based upon

5830-399: The central government entered a period of crisis which crippled its ability to maintain its authority in the provinces; this stagnation allowed 'Umar to rule Sind without any interference from the caliphal court at Samarra . 'Umar ended up creating a hereditary dynasty, that of the Habbarids , which ruled in al-Mansura for almost two centuries. Although the Habbarids continued to acknowledge

5936-411: The collapse of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC with the Battle of Opis , that Mesopotamia and Levant were ruled again by neighboring Semitic -speaking people, after centuries of Persian ( Achaemenid , Parthian and Sasanian empires), and Roman-Greek ( Macedonian , Seleucid the Roman and Byzantine empires) ruling periods. And the first time since the fall of Ancient Carthage in 146 BC with

6042-409: The collapse of the Neo-Babylonian Empire in 539 BC, that the Levant was ruled again by Semitic-speaking people, after centuries of Persian ( Achaemenid Empire ), and Roman-Greek ( Macedonian , the Roman and Byzantine empires) ruling periods. In the mountains of Asia Minor, the Muslims enjoyed less success, with the Byzantines adopting the tactic of "shadowing warfare" — refusing to give battle to

6148-417: The commander of a frontier province, the governor was responsible for guarding the country against external incursions, and could carry out raids into Hind (India) at his discretion. The governor's jurisdiction usually also included the neighboring regions of Makran, Turan and Multan; in addition, any territories that he conquered in Hind were added to his area of authority. In the administrative hierarchy of

6254-408: The conquests started as initially disorganized pillaging raids launched partly by non-Muslim Arab tribes in the aftermath of the Ridda Wars and were soon extended into a war of conquest by the Rashidun caliphs , although other scholars argue that the conquests were a planned military venture already underway during Muhammad's lifetime. Fred Donner writes that the advent of Islam "revolutionized both

6360-431: The culture and literary traditions of the local population who had already become Muslim by way of conversion . The latest documentation of the existence of Shirvani Arabic is attributed to the Azerbaijani historian Abbasgulu Bakikhanov who mentioned in his 1840 historical work Golestan-i Iram that "to this day a group of Shirvan Arabs speaks an altered version of Arabic." Arabic continued to be spoken in Dagestan until

6466-463: The deserts to Syria to attack the Byzantines from the rear. In the Battle of the Mud fought at or near Pella (Fahl) and nearby Scythopolis (Beisan) , both in the Jordan Valley , in December 634 or January 635, the Arabs scored another victory. After a siege of six months the Arabs took Damascus, but Emperor Heraclius later retook it. At the battle of Yarmuk (636), the Arabs were victorious, defeating Heraclius. Ibn al-Walid appears to have been

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6572-484: The early Muslim polities at the conquests' peak have been as high as 13,000,000 square kilometres (5,000,000 sq mi). 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 . It has been suggested that Jews and some Christians in Sasanian and Byzantine territory were dissatisfied and welcomed

6678-571: The early partisans of Caliph Ali or proto- Shi'ites could be traced to Hakim ibn Jabalah al-Abdi, a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad , who traveled across Sind to Makran in 649 and presented a report on the area to the caliph. He supported Ali, and died in the Battle of the Camel alongside Sindi Jats . During the reign of Ali, many Jats came under the influence of Islam. Harith ibn Murrah al-Abdi and Sayfi ibn Fil al-Shaybani, both officers of Ali's army, attacked Sindi bandits and chased them to al-Qiqan (present-day Quetta ) in 658. Sayfi

6784-468: The edge of the Nile River valley, and then defeated a Byzantine counter-attack at Bibays . Contrary to expectations, the Arabs did not head for Alexandria , the capital of Egypt, but instead for a major fortress known as Babylon located at what is now Cairo. Amr was planning to divide the Nile River valley in two. The Arab forces won a major victory at the Battle of Heliopolis in 640, but they found it difficult to advance further because major cities in

6890-419: The first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great , and they were more lasting." 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 . It was the first time since

6996-422: The frontier to provide a "shield" to counter raiding by the Muslims into the empire. Overall, the Byzantine army remained a small but professional force of foederati . Unlike the foederati who were sent where they were needed, the stradioti lived in the frontier provinces. During the last decades of the Sasanian empire, the frequent use of royal titles by Persian governors in Central Asia, especially in what

7102-443: The general Masrur al-Balkhi was given control of most of the eastern provinces, including Sind. Four years after this, Sind was again assigned to the Saffarids, with Amr ibn al-Layth receiving the appointment. These appointments, however, were purely nominal, and it is unlikely that these individuals exercised any actual authority over the local rulers within the province. As the central government's authority over Sind declined,

7208-404: The historian Khalifa ibn Khayyat , after the downfall of Muhammad ibn Qasim the responsibilities of the governor of Sind were temporarily divided between two officials, one of whom was in charge of military affairs and the other in charge of taxation. This change was soon rescinded and the next governor, Habib ibn al-Muhallab al-Azdi , had full authority over both the fiscal and military affairs on

7314-419: The horse and camel but seemed to have been hampered by a lack of weapons or protection, with both Byzantine and Arab sources mentioning the Berbers lacked armour and helmets. The Berbers went to war with their entire communities, and the presence of women and children both slowed down the Berber armies and tied down Berber tribesmen who tried to protect their families. The British historian David Nicolle called

7420-421: The ideological bases and the political structures of the Arabian society, giving rise for the first time to a state capable of an expansionist movement." According to Chase F. Robinson, it is likely that Muslim forces were often outnumbered, but unlike their opponents, they were fast, well coordinated and highly motivated. Sind (caliphal province) Sind ( Arabic : سند , Urdu & Sindhi : سنڌ )

7526-407: The invading Muslim troops, largely because of religious conflict in both empires. 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 . Some of the lands lost by

7632-415: The khans only being pater primus among the aristocracy of dihquans who lived in castles in the countryside, with the rest of Turkic forces being divided into kadivar (farmers), khidmatgar (servants) and atbai (clients). The heavily armored Turkic cavalry played a significant role in influencing subsequent Muslim tactics and weapons; the Turkic peoples, who were mostly Buddhists at

7738-441: The king's banner were paid a regular salary. Those called up for service had to provide their own weapons and horses, which contributed to the "militarisation of Frankish society". At least part of the reason for the victories of Charles Martel was he could call up a force of experienced warriors when faced with Muslim raids. The province of Syria was the first to be wrested from Byzantine control. Arab-Muslim raids that followed

7844-512: The leaders of both sides. However, the fitna ended in January 661 when Ali was killed by a kharaji assassin, allowing Mu'awiya to become caliph and found the Umayyad dynasty . The fitna also marked the beginning of the split between Shia Muslims who supported Ali, and Sunni Muslims who opposed him. Mu'awiya moved the capital of the caliphate from Medina to Damascus, which had a major effect on

7950-464: The most important being Allah (God). There were also Jewish and Christian communities in Arabia, and aspects of Arab religion reflected their influence. Pilgrimage was a major part of Arabian paganism, and one of the most important pilgrimage sites was Mecca , which housed the Kaaba , considered an especially holy place to visit. Muhammad, a merchant of Mecca, started to have visions in which he claimed that

8056-609: The mountains of Daghestan . Daghestani Arabist scholars were famous, attracting students from the whole Muslim world. The lingua franca in Daghestan before the Revolution was Arabic . Then, in the 1920s and 1930s, the main thrust of the anti-religious campaign , was to eradicate Arabic, a religious language, and replace it with Russian. The finest flower of Arabist scholarship disappeared in Stalin 's purges . This article related to

8162-450: The new dynasty came to power, Sind's administrative status was somewhat ambiguous, with governors being appointed either directly by the caliph or by the governor of Khurasan , Abu Muslim . This situation lasted only until Abu Muslim's murder in 755; thereafter, appointments to Sind were almost always handled by the caliph and the central government. In the first century of the Abbasid caliphate, governors continued to conduct raids against

8268-508: The next few years campaigning in Sind and Multan , forcing the various cities of the country to submit to him. This period of conquests continued until 715, when Caliph al-Walid I ( r.  705–715 ) died; shortly after the accession of Caliph Sulayman , Muhammad was arrested and executed, and a replacement was sent by the government to take control of Sind. From then on, the Turk Shahis now had to face an additional Muslim threat from

8374-459: The non-Muslim kingdoms of Hind, and some minor gains were achieved. The historians also recorded the various struggles of the governors to maintain stability within Sind, as internecine tribal warfare, Alid partisans and disobedient Arab factions intermittently threatened the government's control over the region. Another potential source of trouble came from the governors themselves; a few of the individuals appointed to Sind attempted to rebel against

8480-450: The offensive — the mountainous terrain of Anatolia favored the defensive, and for centuries afterwards the line between Christian and Muslim lands ran along the border between Anatolia and Syria. The Byzantine province of Egypt held strategic importance for its grain production, naval yards, and as a base for further conquests in Africa. The Muslim general Amr ibn al-As began the conquest of

8586-434: The only partial defeat of the Byzantine Empire, the Muslims borrowed far more from the vanished Sassanian state than they ever did from the Byzantines. However, for the Persians the defeat remained bitter. Some 400 years later, the Persian poet Ferdowsi lets Yazdgerd III speak in his popular poem Shahnameh ( Book of Kings ): Damn this world, damn this time, damn this fate, That uncivilized Arabs have come to Make me

8692-426: 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

8798-408: The politics and culture of the caliphate. Mu'awiya followed the conquest of Iran by invading Central Asia and trying to finish off the Byzantine Empire by taking Constantinople. In 670, a Muslim fleet seized Rhodes and then laid siege to Constantinople . Nicolle wrote the siege of Constantinople from 670 to 677 was "more accurately" a blockade rather than a siege proper, which ended in failure as

8904-470: The profits of their trade out of Byzantine territory. As a result, the Arabs murdered a Byzantine official named Sergius whom they held responsible for convincing the Emperor Heraclius to impose the trade restrictions. Nikephoros relates that: The Saracens, having flayed a camel, enclosed him in the hide and sewed it up. As the skin hardened, the man who was left inside also withered and so perished in

9010-580: The province on his own initiative in 639. The majority of the Byzantine forces in Egypt were locally raised Coptic forces, intended to serve more as a police force; since the vast majority of Egyptians lived in the Nile River valley, surrounded on both the eastern and western sides by desert, Egypt was felt to be a relatively secure province. In December 639, Amr entered the Sinai with a large force and took Pelusium , on

9116-529: The province. As a general rule, provincial governorships in the Umayyad period were held almost exclusively by Arabs, and this trend was reflected in the appointees to Sind during this period. Qaysi–Yamani tribal politics also played a strong role in the selection and dismissal of governors; if the governor of Iraq was Qaysi , then his governor to Sind would likely be Qaysi, and if he was Yamani , his selection would likely be Yamani as well. There were, however, some exceptions; Junayd ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Murri

9222-584: The recurring outbreaks of bubonic plague ( Plague of Justinian ) left both empires exhausted and weakened in the face of the sudden emergence and expansion of the Arabs. The last of these wars ended with victory for the Byzantines: Emperor Heraclius regained all lost territories and restored the True Cross to Jerusalem in 629. The war against Zoroastrian Persia, whose people worshiped the fire god Ahura Mazda , had been portrayed by Heraclius as

9328-518: The region underwent a period of decentralization. Habbarid authority appears to have been largely restricted to Sind proper, and did not extend to Makran, Turan and Multan, which all broke away under separate dynasties. Some of the rulers in these regions also continued to nominally recognize the caliph as their ruler, but were effectively self-governing; others rejected the caliph's authority altogether and were outright independent. These minor dynasties continued to govern in their respective localities until

9434-450: The region were selected either directly by the caliph or by an authorized subordinate, and remained in office until they either died or were dismissed. Sind was a frontier province of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates from its conquest in c. 711 until the mid-ninth century. Situated at the far eastern end of the caliphate, it consisted of the territories held by the Muslims in India , which at

9540-406: The rout of the imperial army and had to be conquered individually. Jerusalem fell in 638, Caesarea in 640, while others held out until 641. After a two-year siege, the garrison of Jerusalem surrendered rather than starve to death; under the terms of the surrender Caliph Umar promised to tolerate the Christians of Jerusalem and not to turn churches into mosques. True to his word, Umar allowed

9646-622: The southeast, as did Hindu kingdoms, especially the Maitrakas and the Gurjara-Pratiharas , on their western borders, since the Caliphal province of Sind extended as far as Multan , at the gates of the Punjab , and would last until 854 CE as an Umayyad and then Abbasid dependency. As a result of its conquest, Sind became a province of the caliphate and governors were appointed to administer it. As

9752-604: The time of the Islamic conquest, later converted to Islam and came to be regarded as the foremost Muslim warriors, to the extent of replacing the Arabs as the dominant peoples in the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam). During the migration period , the Germanic Visigoths had traveled from their homeland north of the Danube to settle in the Roman province of Hispania , creating a kingdom upon

9858-561: The time were centered in the Indus region. Sind proper was bounded on the west by Makran , on the northwest by Sijistan and the district of Turan , on the northeast by Multan , on the east by the Thar Desert , on the southeast by the non-Muslim Hind , and on the southwest by the Indian Ocean . In the history of the Muslim conquests , Sind was a relatively late achievement, occurring almost

9964-583: The wreckage of the Western Roman Empire . The Visigothic state in Iberia was based around forces raised by the nobility whom the king could call out in the event of war. The king had his gardingi and fideles loyal to himself, while the nobility had their bucellarii . The Visigoths favored cavalry with their favorite tactics being to repeatedly charge a foe combined with feigned retreats . The Muslim conquest of most of Iberia in less than

10070-651: Was "killed by the Saracens" as related in the 7th century Doctrina Jacobi document. In Arabia, swords from India were greatly esteemed as being made of the finest steel and were the favorite weapons of the Mujahideen . The Arab sword known as the sayfy closely resembled the Byzantine gladius . Swords and spears were the major weapons of the Muslims, and armour was either mail or leather. In northern Arabia, Byzantine influence predominated; in eastern Arabia, Persian influence predominated; and in Yemen, Indian influence

10176-690: Was an administrative division of the Umayyad Caliphate and later of the Abbasid Caliphate in post-classical India , from around 711 CE with the Umayyad conquest of Sindh by the Arab military commander Muhammad ibn al-Qasim , to around 854 CE with the emergence of the independent dynasties of the Habbarid Emirate in Sindh proper and the Emirate of Multan in Punjab . The "Governor of Sind" ( Arabic : عامل السند , romanized :  ‘āmil al-Sind )

10282-473: Was an official who administered the caliphal province over what are now Sindh, southern Punjab and Makran ( Balochistan ) in Pakistan . The governor was the chief Muslim official in the province and was responsible for maintaining security in the region. As the leader of the provincial military, he was also in charge of carrying out campaigns against the non-Muslim kingdoms of India. Governors appointed to

10388-459: Was conquered in c.  711 by Muhammad ibn Qasim al-Thaqafi , who had been sent to undertake a punitive expedition against Dahir , the king of Sind. After marching through Makran and defeating its inhabitants, Muhammad entered Sind and attacked the port city of Daybul , which fell after a siege and was partly colonized by the Muslims. Following this victory, Muhammad moved north and encountered Dahir, whom he defeated and killed. He then spent

10494-563: Was felt. As the caliphate spread, the Muslims were influenced by the peoples they conquered—the Turkic peoples in Central Asia, the Persians , and the Byzantines in Syria. The Bedouin tribes of Arabia favored archery, though contrary to popular belief Bedouin archers usually fought on foot instead of horseback. The Arabs usually fought defensive battles with their archers placed on both flanks. By

10600-473: Was followed by the temporary Muslim conquest of Cyprus . As Yemen had been a center of maritime trade, Yemeni sailors were brought to Alexandria to start building an Islamic fleet for the Mediterranean. The Muslim fleet was based in Alexandria and used Acre, Tyre and Beirut as its forward bases. The core of the fleet's sailors were Yemeni, but the shipwrights who built the ships were Iranian and Iraqi. In

10706-479: Was given any chance to recover, as within a few years they were overrun by the advances of the Arabs (newly united by Islam), which, according to James Howard-Johnston, "can only be likened to a human tsunami". According to George Liska, the "unnecessarily prolonged Byzantine–Persian conflict opened the way for Islam". In late 620s Muhammad had already managed to conquer and unify much of Arabia under Muslim rule, and it

10812-460: Was in the hands of the anti-Umayyad rebel Mansur ibn Jumhur al-Kalbi . Following their victory over the Umayyads, the Abbasids at first left Mansur in control of the province, but this state of affairs did not last and the new dynasty sent Musa ibn Ka'b al-Tamimi to take over the region. He was able to defeat Mansur and enter Sind, thereby firmly establishing Abbasid control over the province. After

10918-419: Was initially appointed to Sind by a fellow Qaysi, but was allowed to retain his position for two years after the governor of Iraq was replaced with a Yamani. The governors of Sind in the Umayyad period undertook extensive campaigns against the non-Muslim kingdoms of Hind, but with mixed results. Al-Junayd's campaigns were largely successful, but his successor Tamim ibn Zaid al-Utbi encountered difficulties and

11024-412: Was one of the seven partisans of Ali who were beheaded alongside Hujr ibn Adi al-Kindi in 660 AD, near Damascus . In the caliphate of Mu'awiya I ( r.  661–680 ), the region of Makran was subdued and a garrison was established there. Over the following decades, the Muslims progressed further east, conquering the district of Qusdar and raiding the areas around Qandabil and al-Qiqan. Sind

11130-454: Was soon recalled after achieving some damage and they failed to capture these cities. Several governors were appointed to the Indian frontier ( thaghr al-Hind ) and tasked with conducting campaigns in the east. Some of these expeditions were successful, but others ended in defeat and a number of governors were killed while serving there. According to Derryl N. Maclean, a link between Sind and

11236-406: Was under his leadership that the first Muslim-Byzantine skirmishes took place in response to Byzantine incursions. Just a few months after Heraclius and the Persian general Shahrbaraz agreed on terms for the withdrawal of Persian troops from occupied Byzantine eastern provinces in 629, Arab and Byzantine troops confronted each other at the Battle of Mu'tah as a result of Byzantine vassals murdering

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