Cavalry

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Its unfortunate that very few first hand or contemporary accounts of the Arab conquests were passed down. So much of the information comes from centuries later. I would be very interested to see what tactics were used. While there are some fragments, the lack of contemporary pieces as well as the fact that little archelogical work has been done due to the troubled state of the Middle East in general means that that period is somewhat cloudy.

I too find it amazing that bands of 5,000 warriors could conquer all of Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and such. Even with exhausted Sassanid and Byzantine foes, its quite a bit of territory. Helps that neither of those empires were very religiously tolerant I suppose.

[J.R.M]

Religious fervor can make wonders in warriors if used properly. And there is also the surprise factor i guess.

[Ibrahim]

Its unfortunate that very few first hand or contemporary accounts of the Arab conquests were passed down. So much of the information comes from centuries later. I would be very interested to see what tactics were used. While there are some fragments, the lack of contemporary pieces as well as the fact that little archelogical work has been done due to the troubled state of the Middle East in general means that that period is somewhat cloudy.

I too find it amazing that bands of 5,000 warriors could conquer all of Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Egypt and such. Even with exhausted Sassanid and Byzantine foes, its quite a bit of territory. Helps that neither of those empires were very religiously tolerant I suppose.

just the opposite-its surprisingly well documented (by arab standards). problem is the people who wrote it; the arabs love literary style, not just boring history, so they embellished, and later exaggerated the accounts, rendering them in the second hand form you see today.. as a result, Europeans reading this stuff centuries later couldn't figure it out, and either ignored it, or scratched their heads at it. a common problem in the accounts is that numbers in Arabic could be taken literally, or could be taken metaphorically (so if someone mentions 4000 of something, it may literally be 4000, or mean "a lot").

tactics are well described: double envelopements, flanking manuevers, head on assaults, field trenches, bridge battles, ambushes etc. ,they are all mentioned, and then some. even weapons and armor are described in some detail; we know that arabs typically rode horses without stirrups or saddles for the first 20 years of the conquests, that cowhorn spears were more common than iron ones, adn that infantry was better armored than cavalry.

and it wasn't 5000; it was closer to 70,000-80,000 (if the accounts describing the numbers are literal. applies to all numbers here); most went to fight the Byzantines, and no more than 30,000 fought the sassanids. the battles of yarmouk involved closer to 45,000 Arabs, while kadhimah involved 20,000-30,000 men. even then, Arabs were still locally outnumbered every where they fought, seeing how they divided the men going to the byzantines into several mini armies, around 10-20,000 strong. it makes victory less impressive, but they were still outnumbered and outgunned, even by the exhausted Byzantines and persians.

and while religion did motivate the soldiers to an extant, money tended to have an equal influence on the motivation of the Arabs, as Umar ibn al-khattab payed a lot of money per year to war veterens*. and if one account is to be believed, 'Umar ibn al-khattab was not particularly willing to conquer all that land (he gave a letter to Amr ibn al-'as that could have led to the cancelling of the conquest of Egypt, and in another case he wanted to leave the persians behind the Zagros)


*believe it or not, the same man was against converting the local non-arabs, seeing that conversion to islam made one eligible for the payments, thus diluting the money sent to the Arabs. the policy continued for a century more.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

Yes, your right. I worded my reply wrong. There were numerous first hand accounts BUT they usually did not describe the events in the style most historians are accustomed to creating. Instead, they would tell of different men, tribes, and such within the army, who led this charge, who scaled this wall etc. Names are very common in these sources. But, as forms of poetry were popular to the Arabs, some of that same style makes its way into these sources. I was under the impression that many contemporary Arab conquest histories were more propagandaish than anything but I suppose thats true for most of history. Also many sources seem contradictary. Dates are often confused in various accounts for example. Another is the siege of Damascus. Supposedly half the city was taken by force, the other half given up through diplomacy. Is that truely realistic or were there differing accounts of how the city fell and the historian who put it together chose to represent it this way? But yes, I looked back and there were some good accounts of the battles.

I do remember the story of Umar informing Amr through letter that he should forgo his invasion of Egypt if he had not yet crossed its border. Amr guessed the contents and opened it only after he was in Egyptian territory.

[Ibrahim]

Yes, your right. I worded my reply wrong. There were numerous first hand accounts BUT they usually did not describe the events in the style most historians are accustomed to creating. Instead, they would tell of different men, tribes, and such within the army, who led this charge, who scaled this wall etc. Names are very common in these sources. But, as forms of poetry were popular to the Arabs, some of that same style makes its way into these sources. I was under the impression that many contemporary Arab conquest histories were more propagandaish than anything but I suppose thats true for most of history. Also many sources seem contradictary. Dates are often confused in various accounts for example. Another is the siege of Damascus. Supposedly half the city was taken by force, the other half given up through diplomacy. Is that truely realistic or were there differing accounts of how the city fell and the historian who put it together chose to represent it this way? But yes, I looked back and there were some good accounts of the battles.

I do remember the story of Umar informing Amr through letter that he should forgo his invasion of Egypt if he had not yet crossed its border. Amr guessed the contents and opened it only after he was in Egyptian territory.

exactly the case.the quality and style is the issue, not the number of accounts.

at least the history of the conquests wasn't as propaganda-ridden as that of the histories documenting the Banu umayyah

[Reality=Chaos]

exactly the case.the quality and style is the issue, not the number of accounts.

at least the history of the conquests wasn't as propaganda-ridden as that of the histories documenting the Banu umayyah

Yeah the ummayad period has been badly distorted by the abbasids indeed

[Cimon]

exactly the case.the quality and style is the issue, not the number of accounts.

I'm just now making my first foray (by reading The Great Arab Conquests by Hugh Kennedy) into the Arab conquests 600-700s, so correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that most of the sources come from roughly a century or more after the conquests, and that the sources often contradict each other, which makes it hard to determine which version to view as accurate (or, more accurate at least).

Certainly, as a general matter, some sources are apt to be more reliable than others, but isn't it difficult to determine which ones when, if viewing the sources as a group, the same conquest is related in multiple different ways?

If I am missing something, please let me know.

[Watchman]

That's a basic problem when dealing with historical sources. Just take one look at the Roman historians (often around our only source on stuff that might have happened on as long as two-three centuries earlier), or even Greeks writing of relatively recent events... historians spend a lot of time making sense of the often rather differing accounts of exact same events.

[Cimon]

That's a basic problem when dealing with historical sources. Just take one look at the Roman historians (often around our only source on stuff that might have happened on as long as two-three centuries earlier), or even Greeks writing of relatively recent events... historians spend a lot of time making sense of the often rather differing accounts of exact same events.

Well, sure. I mean, obviously we are trying to interpret sources from across the centuries, so a lot of guesswork is going to be involved. However, and perhaps I wasn't clear about this before, my understanding is that the early sources for the Arab conquests are even more difficult than most, but not just because of style. Rather, that two different sources of apparently equal authenticity/reliability will give two totally different interpretations. For example (and I'm making these up, just to be clear):

Source 1: The Arab forces brought 40,000 troops and fought against the Byzantines 80,000 at Yarmouk in year X.
Source 2: The Arab forces brought 12,000 troops and fought against the Byzantines 20,000 at Yarmouk in Year Y (which is X+1).

That's obviously an overly-simplistic example. However, it seems different to me that a lot of other primary sources I've come across. The two statements above (again, made-up, but to my knowledge true to the spirit of the sources) don't just differ on the number of troops. They also differ on the year it was fought. If I had run out my examples to full effect, I think they probably would have shown a difference in battlefield landscape, tactics, location of battlefield (within certain parameters), etc. etc.

This is not to argue with you Watchman (or anyone else); I recognize your point as an extremely valid one. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my sense of it (on limited exposure, it's true), is that the Arab conquest sources tend to be ever more guess-work related, contradictory, and difficult to sift through than other historical sources of different periods. Certainly in some cases, events are reinforced by broad consensus among multiple sources, but it seems like the best we can do for certain happenings are "There was a battle of Qadisiya between year x and year y. The Sassanians lost," which is very different than sources we have for much of the Greco-Roman classical world (although, of course, much better than happenings in, say, classical Hibernia).

If I'm still misinterpreting things, please do let me know.

[Ibrahim]

I'm just now making my first foray (by reading The Great Arab Conquests by Hugh Kennedy) into the Arab conquests 600-700s, so correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that most of the sources come from roughly a century or more after the conquests, and that the sources often contradict each other, which makes it hard to determine which version to view as accurate (or, more accurate at least).

Certainly, as a general matter, some sources are apt to be more reliable than others, but isn't it difficult to determine which ones when, if viewing the sources as a group, the same conquest is related in multiple different ways?

If I am missing something, please let me know.

your pretty much on target. the earliest sources were usually just written down statements from war veterens, which up to that point were learned by rote, so yes, there is indeed a chaotic tendency, especially as memory is a big issue. the people memorizing, then later being written down, would have embellished the sources. plus there are other factors, discussed by Reality = Chaos, and your self.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

including the Qur´an. there is a famous example of this. the part of the Koran that promises maidens, says something along the lines of ...And they will have doe eyed maidens. If one rearranges the diacritical points a little though (which in the original versions of the text were not there) it could read something along the lines of ....And they shall have rest and grapes. You can imagine the difficulties this creates for studying early arabic texts. By the way there was a written form af nabatean )northern arabian around for quite a while I think, but that was quite different to the new arabic script that developed.

yeah, that would explain some of the more unusual lines in the Qur'an. but I find it a little on the hard end to think that these verses managed to dodge an otherwise very thurough and comprehensive process as checking the Qur'an, especially since it was the earliest book or literary work to be written down regularly (though the arabic script as we know it (sine diacritics) was in existence since the 5-6th centuries, and had been used to write the mu'allaqat, and some treaties). however, I am open to it, even as a muslim, though I must warn you to be careful with that in front of others.

[Brave Brave Sir Robin]

I'm just now making my first foray (by reading The Great Arab Conquests by Hugh Kennedy) into the Arab conquests 600-700s, so correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that most of the sources come from roughly a century or more after the conquests, and that the sources often contradict each other, which makes it hard to determine which version to view as accurate (or, more accurate at least).

Certainly, as a general matter, some sources are apt to be more reliable than others, but isn't it difficult to determine which ones when, if viewing the sources as a group, the same conquest is related in multiple different ways?

If I am missing something, please let me know.

We're reading the same book. Currently reading the chapter on the invasion of Iran. If I had more free time I'd be further...

[Cimon]

We're reading the same book. Currently reading the chapter on the invasion of Iran. If I had more free time I'd be further...

Just about to start the Conquest of Egypt myself. I'm enjoying the book quite a bit. Filling in a big gap in my knowledge base.

Ibrahim, Reality=Chaos and Watchman: Thanks very much for your responses. Good insight, and very helpful.