The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In

Summary

Hugh Kennedy's book narrates the conquests by which Muslim Arab armies, within about a century of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632, came to rule lands from Spain and Morocco to Central Asia and the Indus valley. It opens with a chapter on the sources, chiefly Arabic histories such as those of al-Baladhuri and al-Tabari, written down some two centuries after the events, and on how to use their mix of genealogy, heroic tale and administrative memory. A second chapter sets out the foundations of conquest: an Arabian society of tribes and warriors, the new religious community at Medina, and two great empires, the Byzantine and the Sasanian Persian, exhausted by their war of 602-628 and by recurrent plague. Regional chapters follow. In Syria and Palestine the Muslims defeat the Byzantines at the Yarmuk in 636 and receive the surrender of cities such as Damascus and Jerusalem by treaty. In Iraq they win at Qadisiyya and take the Persian capital Ctesiphon. Amr ibn al-As conquers Egypt and Alexandria by 642. The conquest of Iran is slower, through the battle of Nihavand and years of local agreements, ending with the death of the last Sasanian king, Yazdgard III, near Merv in 651. Into the Maghreb, Arab armies meet determined Berber resistance under leaders such as Kusayla and the woman known as al-Kahina before North Africa is secured, and in 711 Tariq ibn Ziyad crosses to Spain, where the Visigothic kingdom collapses. Crossing the Oxus, Qutayba ibn Muslim campaigns among the cities of Transoxania, Bukhara and Samarqand, while in the furthest east Muhammad ibn al-Qasim enters Sind. A chapter on the war at sea covers the new Muslim fleets, the Battle of the Masts in 655, and the sieges of Constantinople. The book ends with the voices of the conquered, Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian writers in Syriac, Armenian, Coptic and other languages who recorded how the conquests looked to them. Kennedy argues that relatively small, mobile and well-led armies succeeded because of the weakness of their opponents, their own cohesion and conviction, and the generous terms they often offered: local communities kept their faith, property and leaders in return for tribute. Conversion to Islam was therefore slow, taking centuries, and the conquests created the political frame within which Arabic language and Islamic civilization later spread. The book was published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in London and Da Capo Press in Philadelphia in 2007.

Plot or Argument

• Remembrance of things past: the sources

  The Arabic narrative tradition, its late written form and its literary conventions, and the non-Arabic sources that offer a check on it.

• The foundations of conquest

  Arabian tribal society, the Muslim community at Medina, and the condition of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires after decades of war and plague.

• Syria, Palestine and Iraq (630s)

  Battles of the Yarmuk and Qadisiyya; surrender treaties with Damascus and Jerusalem; the fall of Ctesiphon and the founding of garrison cities such as Kufa and Basra.

• Egypt and Iran (640s-650s)

  Amr ibn al-As takes Egypt and Alexandria; Nihavand opens the Iranian plateau; local lords make terms one by one; Yazdgard III dies near Merv.

• Into the Maghreb and Spain (660s-710s)

  Kairouan is founded; Berber resistance under Kusayla and al-Kahina; Musa ibn Nusayr and Tariq ibn Ziyad overthrow the Visigothic kingdom in 711.

• Crossing the Oxus and the road to Samarqand

  Long campaigns in Transoxania under Qutayba ibn Muslim, with shifting alliances among local princes, Turks and Sogdian merchants.

• Furthest east, furthest west, and the war at sea

  Sind under Muhammad ibn al-Qasim; the limits of expansion in Francia and Central Asia; Muslim fleets, the Battle of the Masts and the sieges of Constantinople.

• Voices of the conquered

  Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian chroniclers describe the conquests, from fear and lament to accommodation, showing the variety of local experience.

Characters

• Umar ibn al-Khattab, second caliph (634-644)

  Under his rule Syria, Iraq and Egypt were conquered and the first administration organized.

• Khalid ibn al-Walid, commander

  Celebrated general of the early campaigns in Iraq and Syria.

• Amr ibn al-As, conqueror of Egypt

  Leads the campaign that takes Egypt and Alexandria.

• Yazdgard III, last Sasanian king

  Flees eastward as Iran falls and is killed near Merv in 651.

• Al-Kahina, Berber leader

  Woman remembered for leading resistance to the Arab armies in North Africa.

• Tariq ibn Ziyad, commander in Spain

  Berber freedman who crosses the strait in 711 and defeats the Visigoths.

• Qutayba ibn Muslim, governor of Khurasan

  Leads the campaigns that bring Bukhara and Samarqand under Arab rule.

• Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, commander in Sind

  Young general who conquers the lower Indus valley.

Lessons

• How small armies won wide lands

  Kennedy stresses that the conquering armies were often small. They won because the Byzantine and Persian empires had exhausted each other in a long war and had suffered plague, because the Arabs were mobile and united by faith and leadership, and because many cities and lords preferred negotiated surrender to resistance. Victory came from a combination of causes rather than any single one.

  • What condition were the Byzantine and Persian empires in when the conquests began?
  • What advantages did the Muslim armies have, according to Kennedy?
  • Why do historians usually look for several causes rather than one to explain a great historical change?

• Conquest and conversion are different things

  The conquests brought lands under Muslim rule, but Kennedy shows that most conquered people did not become Muslims for generations. Treaties let Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians keep their worship in return for tribute, and conversion spread slowly over centuries for many reasons. Distinguishing political rule from religious change is one of the book's central lessons.

  • What terms did conquered cities such as Damascus or Jerusalem typically receive?
  • How long did it take for Muslims to become a majority in lands such as Egypt or Iran, according to the book?
  • Why is it important to distinguish who rules a land from what its people believe?

• Reading late and partisan sources

  The Arabic accounts were written down long after the events and shaped by tribal pride, legal concerns and storytelling conventions. Kennedy neither discards them nor accepts them uncritically; he compares them with Greek, Syriac, Armenian and Coptic writers and with what can be known of administration and geography. His method models careful use of imperfect evidence.

  • Why does Kennedy begin with a chapter on the sources?
  • What can the writings of conquered Christians add to the Arabic accounts?
  • How should a historian treat a source written two centuries after the events it describes?

• Many peoples, many responses

  The conquered did not respond in one way. Some cities opened their gates by treaty, Berber leaders fought for decades, Iranian lords bargained, Sogdian merchants changed sides as their interests required, and Christian chroniclers interpreted events through Scripture. The final chapter gives these voices their own place in the story.

  • How did the Berbers of North Africa respond to the Arab armies?
  • What kinds of responses do the Christian chroniclers record?
  • What can we learn by listening to the people on the losing side of a historical change?

Context

In the early seventh century the Near East was divided between the Christian Roman (Byzantine) Empire and the Zoroastrian Sasanian Persian Empire, which fought a long and ruinous war from 602 to 628 and had both suffered repeated outbreaks of plague since the 540s. Arabia lay on their margins, with client kingdoms and trading towns. After the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632, the caliphs at Medina directed Arab tribal forces outward; within twenty years Syria, Iraq, Egypt and most of Iran were under their rule, and by the 710s their armies had reached Spain, Transoxania and Sind. The Umayyad caliphs ruled from Damascus until 750, when the Abbasids moved the center to Iraq. Modern scholarship has debated how far the conquests were driven by religious conviction, economic need or tribal dynamics, and how reliable the late Arabic sources are; Kennedy, a specialist in early Islamic military and political history, wrote for general readers drawing on decades of this research.

Composition

Kennedy wrote the book as a narrative synthesis for a broad readership, built on his scholarly work on the armies and administration of the caliphate and on close reading of Arabic chronicles and non-Arabic sources. It was published in 2007 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in London and by Da Capo Press in the United States, with the subtitle How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In.

Reception

Reviewers praised the book's clarity and its balanced use of sources from both conquerors and conquered, and it has become a standard general introduction to the early Islamic conquests, often read alongside Fred Donner's and Robert Hoyland's studies. Some reviewers noted that its regional organization repeats certain themes, and specialists continue to debate the reliability of the Arabic tradition that Kennedy treats with cautious confidence.

Comparisons

• the-koran

  The scripture of the faith whose community carried out the conquests; Kennedy treats religious conviction as one motive among several in the expansion.

• procopius-history-of-the-wars-persian-war

  Procopius describes the Roman-Persian rivalry and the plague of the sixth century, the long exhaustion of both empires that Kennedy identifies as a condition of the conquests.

• kennedy-when-baghdad-ruled-the-muslim-world

  Kennedy's companion volume carries the story forward to the Abbasid caliphate that ruled the lands these conquests created.

• ibn-khaldun-muqaddimah

  Ibn Khaldun's theory of group solidarity among desert peoples was an early attempt to explain how tribal armies founded dynasties, an idea that bears on Kennedy's account of Arab cohesion.

• ansary-destiny-disrupted

  Tamim Ansary's narrative of world history from a Muslim perspective tells the same expansion as part of a story of community and faith, a different frame from Kennedy's military and political history.

• gibbon-decline-and-fall-selections

  Gibbon's chapters on Muhammad and the Arab conquests were the classic English narrative of these events, written from the Byzantine sources and Arabic texts available in the eighteenth century.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• How Kennedy evaluates the Arabic sources in his first chapter, and how he uses them later.
• The condition of the Byzantine and Persian empires at the start of the conquests.
• Differences between regions: quick surrender in some, long resistance in others.
• The terms of surrender treaties and what they allowed conquered people to keep.
• The final chapter's voices of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian witnesses.

Key terms and names

Caliph

Successor to the Prophet as leader of the Muslim community; the first four were based at Medina.

Jizya

The tribute or poll tax paid by non-Muslim subjects under Muslim rule in return for protection.

Dhimmi

A protected non-Muslim subject, such as a Christian or Jew, under a treaty of surrender.

Amsar (garrison cities)

New military settlements such as Kufa, Basra and Fustat where the Arab armies lived apart from the conquered population.

Sasanian Empire

The Persian empire ruled from Ctesiphon, conquered by the Arabs between 636 and 651.

Umayyad caliphate

The dynasty ruling from Damascus from 661 to 750, during which the conquests reached Spain and Central Asia.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What happened at the Yarmuk and at Qadisiyya, and why were they important?
2. Comprehension What resistance did the Arab armies meet in North Africa, and who led it?
3. Comprehension What terms did surrendering cities typically receive?
4. Interpretation Why does Kennedy think the weakness of the Byzantine and Persian empires is essential to explaining the conquests?
5. Interpretation How does Kennedy distinguish between conquest and conversion, and what evidence does he offer?
6. Interpretation What do the voices of the conquered add to the story told by the Arabic sources?
7. Big Question How did the conquests shape the relationship between Christianity and Islam for centuries afterward?
8. Big Question How should Christians understand the loss of ancient Christian lands such as Syria, Egypt and North Africa?

Faith Connections

• Revelation 2:5 (Scripture)

  Christ warns a church that its lampstand may be removed. Several of the Christian chroniclers of the conquests read events as a call to repentance.

• Jeremiah 29:7 (Scripture)

  Seek the welfare of the city where you are in exile. Christian communities under the new rulers, as the final chapter shows, continued to live, worship and serve in lands they no longer governed.

• John of Damascus, On Heresies 100 (Church Fathers)

  John, a Christian official's son who served at the Umayyad court in Damascus before becoming a monk, wrote one of the earliest Christian responses to Islam from within the conquered lands.

• Sophronius of Jerusalem, Christmas Sermon of 634 (Church Fathers)

  The patriarch who later surrendered Jerusalem preached that Christians could not reach Bethlehem because of the invaders, an early Christian voice of the conquests.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The Arab armies were relatively small, yet they defeated two great empires and won lands from Spain to Sind. Their opponents were exhausted by war and plague, the conquerors were cohesive and mobile, and many communities were offered terms that let them keep their faith and property. Therefore the conquests succeeded through this combination of causes, and the spread of Islam as a religion followed later and slowly.

Rhetorical device: source criticism woven into narrative. Kennedy opens with a chapter on the Arabic sources and repeatedly sets their accounts beside Greek, Syriac and Armenian writers before drawing conclusions.

Debate: Resolved: that the weakness of the Byzantine and Persian empires, more than the strength of the Arab armies, explains the speed of the conquests.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Kennedy argues that conquest and conversion were separate processes. Using his account of surrender treaties and the voices of the conquered, explain why the distinction matters for understanding the history of the Middle East.

Comparison with History of the Wars, Books I-II (The Persian War): Procopius describes the Roman-Persian wars and the plague of the 540s. Using his account and Kennedy's, explain how the condition of the two empires in the sixth and early seventh centuries helped make the Arab conquests possible.

Medical Lens

Medical matters are marginal. Kennedy counts recurrent plague since the 540s among the conditions that weakened the Byzantine and Persian empires before the conquests, and the plague of Amwas (Emmaus) in Syria in about 639, which killed leading Muslim commanders, is part of the narrative of the Syrian campaign. Wounds and deaths in battle are recorded as in any military history.

• The foundations of conquest

  Plague and the long Roman-Persian war as causes of imperial weakness before the conquests.

  Plague Epidemic
• The conquest of Syria and Palestine

  The plague of Amwas among the Muslim armies in Syria.

  Plague Epidemic

Creative Prompts

• Dialogue

  Write the negotiation for the surrender of a Syrian city, giving voice to a Muslim commander and to the city's bishop as they agree terms.

• Essay

  Kennedy argues that the conquests succeeded through a combination of causes. Which cause do you think mattered most, and why?

• Fiction

  Write a page of a chronicle kept by a Coptic monk in Egypt in the 640s, recording the arrival of Amr's army.

• Classroom

  Create a timeline and map of the conquests from 632 to 751, marking each region, its major battle or treaty, and its commander.

Further Reading

• The Early Islamic Conquests, Fred M. Donner

• In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire, Robert G. Hoyland

• The Origins of the Islamic State (Futuh al-Buldan), al-Baladhuri (trans. Philip K. Hitti)

  One of the main Arabic sources Kennedy uses, in a public-domain translation.

• The Armies of the Caliphs, Hugh Kennedy

• The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates, Hugh Kennedy