How did the Arabs conquer so much land?

How did the Arabs conquer so much land?

Also looking for general books on early Arab conquests, trying to educate myself on it but I dont have many good books to start with

temporary military advantage before their neighbors and internal factions adapted to the changes

This, plus most of that is enpty desert and mountainous badland

After living in Iran and travelling through Afghanistan and Pakistan, I can say this is mostly true. The Revolution sent Iran back 100 years, a shame, really. The land itself, especially in the north, near the Caspian sea, is a sight to behold.

ITT: What is the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628

light cav

This a long with a short lived in advantage militarily.

After they took Persia and Egypt any retaliation was going to be very difficult; the Byzantines lost their breadbasket and Western Europe was generally a mess of kingdoms so creating a unified opposition was very difficult.

I'd think this was more of a minor factor, not a major reason for the expansion.

If it was a major reason, why did they expand beyond Byzantine and persian territory so much?

These lands are basically deserst, it's all empty. You just need to conquer less than 10 villages and draw a fucking huge territory.

Egypt and the Levant had massive populations

For non-roman land, it was because the polity of mohammed was the most organized of the lot, conquering mostly small warring tribes, while integrating them equitably (well, for the most part) into the polity. Later conquest into byzantine and indian territory, well, by this time they were fuckhuge and had particular integrated war tribes that now had the organization necessary to fuck up real turf.

>sent it back 100 years
Top fucking kek. I recall reading simewhere about the "tobacco revolution" that happened in iran when the shah was still in power, from what I understood the shah gave exclusive rights to the brits concerning irans tobacco production which was ONE OF THE MAIN ECONOMIC RESOURCES iran had back then, which says a lot about the elcountry back then, opposed to now where iran has nuclear technology and has significantly progressed in almost all fields. I know that you hate the current regime, but COME ON, 100 years ago??

It was the most continuous beta uprising in history.

Most Arab Conquest books are focused on the 900-1200 Abassid period.

The sources 650-750 during the Rashidun and Ummayad Caliphates are.... sparse and questionable to say the least.

>How did the Arabs conquer so much land?

Most of north Africa and Arabia was and still is unhabited desert
Most of all the -stan countries was and still is unhabited steppe

So the only places they actually had to put up some effort to conquer were Iberia and Persia

By dominating the countryside and surrounding the cities which then surrendered because the Byzantines and Sassanids were no longer able or willing to reinforce Syria, Iraq, and Egypt. The plague severely weakened urban populations as well which gave rural tribes even more political and economic power in the run up to the invasions, and the Arabs were better able to subjugate or ally these groups than anyone else. The Arabs then sent out large numbers of tribes and their families into North Africa and Persia to establish major colonies that then repeated the tactic among the Berbers and the Khorasanis all while being able to communicate with the major tribes of Arabia in case they needed reinforcements or spotted opportunities for further expansion.

t. Ignorant

same can be said for the mongols, the spanish the british and so on

>The Revolution sent Iran back 100 years

Iran virtually improved in all measures bar 'moral' and 'human rights' ones. Arguably, had there have been no sanctions they'd be in an incredibly strong position even now much more than what he current trend was going to be.

1. Arab tribes united, were very zealous
2. Arabs had Khalid ibn al-Walid as a commander
3. The Persians and Byzantines were militarily exhausted from fighting each other

>These lands are basically deserst, it's all empty.

Iran and Egypt were hugely economical and populous lands with well established infrastructure and territory.

>because the Byzantines and Sassanids were no longer able or willing to reinforce Syria, Iraq, and Egypt.

Many people fail to recognise (or outright ignore) that part of what facilitated the conquests was precisely the fact that former territories of Byzantine rule wanted to rebel against them and actually welcomed their new overlords.

Yeah the Byzantines were mired in religious dissent that really alienated non-chalcedonian churches and made them extremely bitter towards the empire.
I'm sure for a while life under Islamic rule was great. Until it wasn't and they realized that they were still being exterminated, just more slowly.

You can say that about pretty much every single empire.
Mongols: Hurr durr punch of steppe
Romans: Worthless barbarians couldn't put up a fight
British, Moortugal, Spanish, etc: Fought injuns