Early Muslim Expansion - Conquest of Syria and Iraq 602-636

Started by Vetus Ordo, July 06, 2020, 01:16:40 PM

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Vetus Ordo

Another excellent video from Kings and Generals. Especially relevant as it highlights the military genius of Khalid, one of the greatest military figures of all-time.

Early Muslim Expansion - Conquest of Syria and Iraq 602-636

In the new Kings and Generals full animated historical documentary, we will describe the rise of the Rashidun Caliphate, its first wars against the Eastern Roman and Sassanid Empires. This first video largely focuses on Khalid ibn al-Walid and his campaigns in Syria and Iraq, and the battles of the Chain, River, Wallaja, Ullais, Muzayyah, Firaz, Ajnadayn, Damascus, Maraj-al-Debaj, Pella, Emesa, Yarmouk, of the Bridges and al-Qadisiyyah.

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2cEIDZwG5M[/yt]
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Bl. Karl Hapsburg

Kings and Generals is my go to youtube channel on lunch break. They always do and excellent job setting up the battles.
If people don't believe in God, they won't believe in nothing; they'll believe in anything - Chesterton

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Bl. Karl Hapsburg on July 06, 2020, 01:42:19 PM
Kings and Generals is my go to youtube channel on lunch break. They always do and excellent job setting up the battles.

Yes, it's an excellent channel. The reenaction of the battles is superb.

I highly recommend it.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Prayerful

The Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.
Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 02:47:01 PMThe Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.

The Roman Empire was never able to conquer Persia.

The camel jockeys from Arabia did it in just 20 years. Not only that, they imprinted their religion into the Persians' national character and changed forever the history of the country to this very day. It was quite the military and civilizational feat. I'm afraid there's no "luck" in God's universe.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Prayerful

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 02:59:24 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 02:47:01 PMThe Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.

The Roman Empire was never able to conquer Persia.

The camel jockeys from Arabia did it in just 20 years. Not only that, they imprinted their religion into the Persians' national character and changed forever the history of the country to this very day. It was quite the military and civilizational feat. I'm afraid there's no "luck" in God's universe.

Call it luck or circumstances, but both powers were utterly exhausted, and the Arabs had unified and had long experience of serving as federates for both. Many cities with Monophysite believers and other religions were disgruntled with the attitude of the Sassanid priesthood and Roman bishops, also with the relentless demands for supplies and taxes while the state failed to provide security. The Arabs made deals with various cities and, for long after, mostly kept to encampments near the city. The taxes might sometimes have a slighting character for non Arabs, but were apparently lower. The Persians were changed, but there still is a major non Islamic aspect to Persia. The Middle East otherwise became utterly Arabised.
Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.

Vetus Ordo

Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 03:11:18 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 02:59:24 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 02:47:01 PMThe Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.

The Roman Empire was never able to conquer Persia.

The camel jockeys from Arabia did it in just 20 years. Not only that, they imprinted their religion into the Persians' national character and changed forever the history of the country to this very day. It was quite the military and civilizational feat. I'm afraid there's no "luck" in God's universe.

Call it luck or circumstances, but both powers were utterly exhausted, and the Arabs had unified and had long experience of serving as federates for both. Many cities with Monophysite believers and other religions were disgruntled with the attitude of the Sassanid priesthood and Roman bishops, also with the relentless demands for supplies and taxes while the state failed to provide security. The Arabs made deals with various cities and, for long after, mostly kept to encampments near the city. The taxes might sometimes have a slighting character for non Arabs, but were apparently lower. The Persians were changed, but there still is a major non Islamic aspect to Persia. The Middle East otherwise became utterly Arabised.

The point is that the Arabs, much weaker and less sophisticated than Rome, achieved in Persia what the Romans were never even close to achieving. Military conquest first in just 20 years and then a permanent civilizational conquest through Islam. They did the same with Roman Africa and Roman Syria. It was a spectacular and dumbfounding success that historians to this day have trouble unpacking. Anatolia came later through the Turks, a people who were Islamicized by the Persians themselves.

There was more than luck or favorable circumstances involved, theological questions aside about the existence of "chance" in a predetermined universe. One can clearly see a divine hand in these events, even if by mere permission.
DISPOSE OUR DAYS IN THY PEACE, AND COMMAND US TO BE DELIVERED FROM ETERNAL DAMNATION, AND TO BE NUMBERED IN THE FLOCK OF THINE ELECT.

Mr. Mysterious

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 04:38:01 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 03:11:18 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 02:59:24 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 02:47:01 PMThe Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.

The Roman Empire was never able to conquer Persia.

The camel jockeys from Arabia did it in just 20 years. Not only that, they imprinted their religion into the Persians' national character and changed forever the history of the country to this very day. It was quite the military and civilizational feat. I'm afraid there's no "luck" in God's universe.

Call it luck or circumstances, but both powers were utterly exhausted, and the Arabs had unified and had long experience of serving as federates for both. Many cities with Monophysite believers and other religions were disgruntled with the attitude of the Sassanid priesthood and Roman bishops, also with the relentless demands for supplies and taxes while the state failed to provide security. The Arabs made deals with various cities and, for long after, mostly kept to encampments near the city. The taxes might sometimes have a slighting character for non Arabs, but were apparently lower. The Persians were changed, but there still is a major non Islamic aspect to Persia. The Middle East otherwise became utterly Arabised.

The point is that the Arabs, much weaker and less sophisticated than Rome, achieved in Persia what the Romans were never even close to achieving. Military conquest first in just 20 years and then a permanent civilizational conquest through Islam. They did the same with Roman Africa and Roman Syria. It was a spectacular and dumbfounding success that historians to this day have trouble unpacking. Anatolia came later through the Turks, a people who were Islamicized by the Persians themselves.

There was more than luck or favorable circumstances involved, theological questions aside about the existence of "chance" in a predetermined universe. One can clearly see a divine hand in these events, even if by mere permission.

Ah but don't forget; the Arabs weren't at the logistical disadvantage that the Romans were. They were living on a desert peninsula bordered by the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean, were not surrounded on three sides by hostile enemies (the Romans had the Parthian and later Sassanian Empires as well as the Germanic tribes and the Caledonians of Scotland and later Irish raids and later on the great Asiatic migrations to contend with and were decimated by constant civil wars and plagues) and geographically the Arabs were much closer to the Persian heartland. The desert conditions of much of Persia and north Africa were also very similar to the desert conditions of Arabia.

A somewhat similar situation happened in Italy in the 6th century. Italy was devastated and depopulated to a large degree by the Byzantine-Ostrogothic wars. This is one of the main reasons why the Lombards (earlier known as the Langobards) after forming an alliance with the Avars and destroying the Gepids, were able to move into Italy virtually unopposed.   
"Take courage! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

The Theosist

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 04:38:01 PMThere was more than luck or favorable circumstances involved, theological questions aside about the existence of "chance" in a predetermined universe. One can clearly see a divine hand in these events, even if by mere permission.

In your favoured theological paradigm, everything that is, from the birth of Jesus to the murder of innocents to a dog piddling on the rug, is at least by divine permission. So what's your point? That it was by more than mere permission? And pray tell, if it was impossible by human effort and material circumstance alone, why should I be obliged to see a divine hand in it? Why not the hand of the Devil? Even if by mere divine permission.

Prayerful

Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 04:38:01 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 03:11:18 PM
Quote from: Vetus Ordo on July 07, 2020, 02:59:24 PM
Quote from: Prayerful on July 07, 2020, 02:47:01 PMThe Arab armies were very lucky. Both Roman and Persia had fought each other to exhaustion. The Sassanid Persian rulers made grave strategic errors like failing to defend Ctesiphon, the ancient Seleucia-on-the-Orontes. The Romans probably hopes a withdrawal to Egypt and Anatolia, after Yarmuk would allow them to recuperate and retake Syria. Excellent video.

The Roman Empire was never able to conquer Persia.

The camel jockeys from Arabia did it in just 20 years. Not only that, they imprinted their religion into the Persians' national character and changed forever the history of the country to this very day. It was quite the military and civilizational feat. I'm afraid there's no "luck" in God's universe.

Call it luck or circumstances, but both powers were utterly exhausted, and the Arabs had unified and had long experience of serving as federates for both. Many cities with Monophysite believers and other religions were disgruntled with the attitude of the Sassanid priesthood and Roman bishops, also with the relentless demands for supplies and taxes while the state failed to provide security. The Arabs made deals with various cities and, for long after, mostly kept to encampments near the city. The taxes might sometimes have a slighting character for non Arabs, but were apparently lower. The Persians were changed, but there still is a major non Islamic aspect to Persia. The Middle East otherwise became utterly Arabised.

The point is that the Arabs, much weaker and less sophisticated than Rome, achieved in Persia what the Romans were never even close to achieving. Military conquest first in just 20 years and then a permanent civilizational conquest through Islam. They did the same with Roman Africa and Roman Syria. It was a spectacular and dumbfounding success that historians to this day have trouble unpacking. Anatolia came later through the Turks, a people who were Islamicized by the Persians themselves.

There was more than luck or favorable circumstances involved, theological questions aside about the existence of "chance" in a predetermined universe. One can clearly see a divine hand in these events, even if by mere permission.

There are suggestions that Mecca was a later creation, and instead Petra was the birthplace of Islam. If that's so, or something somewhat close, the Romans and Persians after years of mutually exhausting struggle were brought down by people who had the measure of both militarily. The Romans withdrew to Alexandria a little later in the face of a mutinous Coptic population. Patriarch Cyrus probably was certain he get his own back once these rebels and Arab mercenaries were later dealt with. The Romans had already quit Syria after Yarmuk. Whether Heraclius had a nervous breakdown or was intrigued with Islam (it really isn't clear Islam then and now are even close), the Romans were at that moment weakened and pulled back. Rebels had taken portions of the Empire before, so it mightn't have seemed that final. John Tzimiskes, for instance, took much of Palestine, although it wasn't held. Cyprus and Antioch were more permanently recovered some centuries later. I mentioned already the Persian blunders. What were once called the two eyes of the world were blinded.

I see the co-incidence of military and religious troubles at that one time.
Padre Pio: Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.