Great Islamic Conquests AD 632-750 »

Born in 1944, David Nicolle worked in the BBC's Arabic service for a number of years before gaining an MA from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a doctorate from Edinburgh University. He has written numerous books and articles on medieval and Islamic warfare, and has been a prolific author of Osprey titles for many years. The author lives in Leicestershire, UK.

Few, if any, centuries in world history have had such a profound and long-lasting impact as the first hundred years of Islamic history. In this book, David Nicolle, a former member of the BBC's Arabic service, examines the extensive Islamic conquests between 632 and 750 AD. These years saw the religion and culture of Islam, as well as the Arabic language, erupt from the Arabian Peninsula to spread across an area far larger than that of the Roman Empire at its greatest extent. It also saw the abrupt collapse of the Persian Empire, as well as the permanent withdrawal of the Romano-Byzantine Empire and its associated cultures, along with Christianity as a ruling faith, from the Middle East and North Africa.

Virtually all the lands "opened" by their armies remain Islamic - and in many cases Arabic-speaking - to this day, in contrast to the often ephemeral achievements of better-known conquerors, such as Alexander the Great and several Roman Caesars, and the effects of this rapid expansion was to shape European affairs for centuries to come.

Introduction 7

Chronology 9

Background to war: Pre-Islamic Arabia 13

Outbreak: The birth of Islam and the unifying of Arabia 19

The warring sides: Armies of the Middle East and the Mediterranean 26

The fighting: A rising religion meets tired empires 48

Portrait of a soldier: Two warriors of Arabia 63

From conquest to empire: The Umayyad century 66

How the war ended: The fall of the Umayyad dynasty 76

The world around the war: Architecture and religion 80

Portrait of a civilian: A man of letters and a man of God 86

Conclusion 90

Further reading 92

Index 94