All you History Majors (Help Please)

[tapanojum]

1) Why and how did the Muslim Armies of the Arabian Peninsula advance so rapidly and so far?

2) What were the contributions of the Romans to Western Civilization? Be sure to include, engineering, architecture, government, artistic, and philosophical achievements.


For my midterm tomorrow I want to know everyones views on these questions as the answers vary on how one interprets it.

Thanks

[runes]

if you can't answer the 2nd one, and you're in an ancient history class... ... maybe you shouldn't be passing anyway

[Beefy187]

and im not sure if you should be asking question 1 here.. Dont think it fits the time period

[tapanojum]

if you can't answer the 2nd one, and you're in an ancient history class... ... maybe you shouldn't be passing anyway

Whats up with some people being real assholes on these boards lately? I know the facts, I want to hear peoples opinions and views on the matter as well. If you don't want to contribute, don't bother posting anything at all then.

I am doing very well in my class, thank you for being concerned.

[tapanojum]

and im not sure if you should be asking question 1 here.. Dont think it fits the time period

True, but I can't think of any other place I can get peoples opinion on the matter. True some people come here just because they love the game and mod, but I've noticed just as many go through these boards who have a vast knowledge of history who I'm sure would love to share their views.

[Intranetusa]

True, but I can't think of any other place I can get peoples opinion on the matter. True some people come here just because they love the game and mod, but I've noticed just as many go through these boards who have a vast knowledge of history who I'm sure would love to share their views.

When you ask something like

"Be sure to include, engineering, architecture, government, artistic, and philosophical achievements."

- your tone makes it seem like you're just asking the people here to do your homework for you... :/

[tapanojum]

That is not "my tone", those are the given question on the study guide I copied down word for word. I guess I should of made that clear in the beginning, my apologies. There is no homework, I have a mid term coming up and I wanted to see other peoples views as I am discussing this with classmates as well.

I always see people discussing historical events and arguing for weeks about such things on this board. This is why I'm shocked to see that the only replies to my questions have been attempts at making me look stupid or lazy.

My bad, from now on I will stick strictly to the book and given facts and never wonder what views other peoples have on the subject and how they interpret the facts.

[pezhetairoi]

I second intranetusa's post. That's the impression I got, too, and since I didn't think this was offensive per se, I refrained from stomping hard on your toes. That's not to say I wasn't a bit miffed by what seemed to be a very haughty demand. It wasn't even 'could you please help?', it was 'help please.' Imperative, not questioning.

But yeah, it's a matter of phrasing. 'Nuff said. Just gotta be more careful how you say it.

To the topic, though, I'll just say there's a pretty general consensus to what Romans have contributed. A body of law, a culture that by virtue of outlasting everything else in the region became the dominant cultural inspiration for succeeding ages, a religion that eventually became equated with the culture, a tempering of 'barbarian' violence that led to the Middle Ages as we know them. It's in a lot of books, and there's little anyone else can say that would differ, the Roman Empire is so monolithic.

The Romans also contributed to Western civilisation by destroying practically every other civilisation in the region except the Germans, permitting a sort of cultural homogeneity that permitted states to understand each other in a common context. But of course, those of us who play EB will know that said destruction is more a tragedy than anything else.

The Muslim armies were able to advance so fast simply because
1) They were light cavalry-based troops who understood and used to the max the value of mobility.
2) Their enemies were disunited, and where united, they had no answer to the Islamic tactics.
3) Religious fervour resulting in much higher morale and determination overpowering the enemy's.
4) Their initial speed gave them a momentum that was never lost. They moved and hit so fast the enemy could not respond.
5) They made alliances with people they didn't REALLY have to/couldn't beat up. I mean the Berbers.
6) Being nomadic in nature, they didn't have the habit of staying too long in one place to consolidate it, making them faster than even Alexander.
7) Their reputation preceded them, meaning they didn't have to fight their way through every single strongpoint. Most simply surrendered and gave the Muslims their loyalty/conversions allowing them to move on.

[tapanojum]

what seemed to be a very haughty demand. It wasn't even 'could you please help?', it was 'help please.' Imperative, not questioning.

Thank you pezhetairoi, you are right. I should of phrased that better. In my defense I did say Help Please in the title . I am studying/talking to other people about this and quickly posted that up and ran off to continue my activities. My apologies for that.

What I can't seem to find in the books or online is to why the Arab powers were allowed to consolidate so much strength? Much trade existed between the Arabs and other powers such as Byzantine, and the Arabs sharing the borders had some Hellenic influence. How was such unity and process of building strength undetected by the Byzantine Empire? Were their conflicts with the Sassanids so consuming that they failed to notice, or were they not able to do much?

I read that the Sassanids did not expect such strength and half-assed their efforts at first until it was too late.

What you said about the Romans is pretty much what the book says and as you say, cant really argue with that, although I quite don't understand their Philosophical achievements. Wasn't Roman Philosophy greatly based of the Greek Philosophy and nothing really innovative?

Thanks again, I really appreciate it.

[pezhetairoi]

On the philosophy part I am of the school that says the Romans in philosophical terms were like the guys who buy the rights to a new invention and market it. They become famous for it, but they didn't invent it.

I read that about the Sassanids, too. Quite frankly in Singapore there are very few books on the spread of Islam, only on the time period when Islam is pretty much set up and running. What I know comes by and large from the Cambridge history of the Middle Ages and by many fragments and passing mentions in books. Also primarily from a study of the Crusades and the forces the Europeans came up against, and extrapolating backwards.

The thing about the Arabs is that everyone underestimated them, as I see it. You wouldn't expect what seems to you to be a bunch of people sitting around in the sand and hobnobbing with camels to be capable of much, especially when you don't see more than a few of them at a time unless you go to their big towns (they're not even cities, man). I mean, at the time of Mohammad, his greatest victory (at Mecca? or Medina?) involved opposing armies numbering in the -hundreds-. Like, wow.

It wasn't so much as the Byzantines etc 'allowing' the Arab powers to consolidate that much power, but more of their absolute inability to have any say in it. At this period in time the Byzantines were only really in control of Asia Minor, Syria somewhat south past Antioch to somewhere around Jerusalem, and that was that. To presume that this geographical stance would have allowed them to intervene in Arab politics (remember, Mecca and Medina are all along the southern-half west coast of Arabia) would have earned them a laugh and a spit in the face from the Qurayshites or any other tribe. Furthermore, the Byzantines were more worried about the Sassanids than they could be about a bunch of sand-loving unwashed nomads. Same about the Sassanids.

Clearly, they didn't learn any lessons from the Huns.

Furthermore, how could they enforce it? An army? To reach Mecca from Syria is like travelling the whole length of the Persian or Byzantine Empire. The logistical nightmare to transport an army across leagues and leagues of featureless sand and rock and get it to its destination alive, not to mention that the Arabs would almost surely fight as guerrillas, makes it unthinkable. Not to mention that any despatching of an army to the Arabs, which had trade links with both the Sassanids and Byzantines, would be viewed by the other as a weakening of defences that would be exploited at home, or might be construed as a threat to the other since control of Arabia would allow one to 'outflank' the border and get into the heart of the other's territory. Either way, war would follow.

Another possibility as I see it is that the core of Islam was actually in the southern half of Arabia, beyond the Hellenistic Arab entities from a Byzantine/Sassanid POV. By the time the Muslims surged out and overran the Hellenistic Arab countries and began knocking on the gates of Damascus and Ctesiphon it was probably too late to do much. It takes time to muster a response where large states are concerned (as anyone with a huge empire in EB will discover when the need arises to focus an army on one particular area arises), however rich and powerful they may be. And time is what the Byzantines and Sassanids didn't have.

Further, the Arabs hit the Sassanids first. Though I don't know enough about the byzantine nature of Byzantine policy to be even halfway authoritative on this, I would guess that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hence a fatal slowness of response that resulted in Manzikert.

[cmacq]

What I can't seem to find in the books or online is to why the Arab powers were allowed to consolidate so much strength? Much trade existed between the Arabs and other powers such as Byzantine, and the Arabs sharing the borders had some Hellenic influence. How was such unity and process of building strength undetected by the Byzantine Empire? Were their conflicts with the Sassanids so consuming that they failed to notice, or were they not able to do much?

I read that the Sassanids did not expect such strength and half-assed their efforts at first until it was too late.

I remember reading a paper, I belive in 2001, about a long series of devastating wars fought between Byzantines and Sassanids that wrecked both empires. The last, the III Perso-Turkic War, was conducted immediately prior to the initial Arab attacks.

Anastasian War AD 502-505
Iberian War AD 526-532
Khosrau's War AD 539-545
Lazic War AD 547-562
Caucasus War AD 572-591
Perso-Roman Climax War AD 602-626
III Perso-Turkic War AD 627-629
_________________

Arab conquest of Sassanid Empire AD 633–656

Of course there also was that little Medieval Warm Period thingie that stared some time around AD 600.

So in a nut shell the answer to question number...
1) Why and how did the Muslim Armies of the Arabian Peninsula advance so rapidly and so far?

is....
the how...
Slight over population in Arabian Peninsula (more so after AD 700) due to the beginning of an extended period of warm-wet climate. And...
the why...
total exhaustion of Byzantines and Sassanids due to nearly continuous warfare for over a century. Plus several internal civil wars.

Actually the Arab conquest helped the Byzantines recover, as the Sassanids had them on the ropes.
I'll see if I can't find that paper for you?

[tapanojum]

All very good points. Of course an invasion of Arabia would be redicilous and unthinkable at the time but actions in strengthening their defenses would not have been. Egypt was the Byzantine Empires richest region, yet the Arabs marched almost unopposed through it. It just troubles me that a great power such as Byzantine would be so clueless of such activities in Arabia. Arabs first raided these provinces in hopes of ganing riches and retreating back into the deserts, but during these raids they realized how weak Byzantine and the Sassanids were. It's hard to believe that all these raids did not bring enough attention to the south as a hostile threat and some actions be taken, wether strengthening defenses our scouting parties.

I agree the Arabs were highly underestimated, as shows with the half-ass effort on the Sassanid side in the beggining.

So the Arabs had really nice timing? The two regional powers in the Area Byzantine/Sassanid were weak and exhausted due to their constant conflict.

btw, I believe the Turks were involved in Manzikert not Arabs.


Thanks again, this is all great insight!

[pezhetairoi]

Oops about Manzikert. It was Yarmuk I meant.

My point number 7 about surrendering to the invader is much more important than it would seem, really. Nearly all Syria welcomed the Muslims because of intra-CHristian differences. Also, it was good timing where the Byzantines were concerned because the Muslims attacked at a time when emperor Heraclius (who was actually a pretty competent commander) was ill shortly after having soundly thrashed the Sassanids.

That, incidentally, is a major reason why the Sassanids went down so quickly. They had just lost a major war with Byzantium in which Heraclius had advanced all the way to the gates of Ctesiphon before they signed peace. Thus they were exhausted. Then came the Arabs, who captured all the riches of the Sassanids, and turned them and their manpower against the Byzantines. Tada.

[Geoffrey S]

The second question is rather too large for me to bother answering; the first, a major factor is the different approach to warfare. Both the Sassanids and the Byzantines were far more dependent on set-piece battles on level terrain for their large numbers to be effective. The Arabs tended to draw them away from such terrain and engage them in areas where they had too few supplies and couldn't deploy the way they needed to; that, combined with the previous exhausting wars, certainly helped take over the Sassanid Empire and the outlying regions of the Byzantine one.

[cmacq]

Nearly all Syria welcomed the Muslims because of intra-CHristian differences.

BTW Syria is actually from the Greek term Συριοι which denotes the christian community of that region. I belive the old arab term is something like Al-Sham, or Bilad Al-Sham.

Also the final group of Byzantine and Sassanid wars weren't normal wars. They've been called total wars.

[tapanojum]

All very good points. It seems in history that most of the great ancient cultures,etc, were lucky with timing or geography.

Darn my poor Armenians, always stuck in the middle

[cmacq]

timing or geography.

You'll note the Norse (Danes and Nords) on the other hand, at near the same time. Again the Medieval Warm Period at work. With less ice at the poles comes longer summers and more rain, more food, more births, more babies, and more mouths to feed, which in turn means more the need to free more land from the hands of those who can not hold it.

[tapanojum]

You'll note the Norse (Danes and Nords) on the other hand, at near the same time. Again the Medieval Warm Period at work. With long summers and more rain comes more food, more births, more babies, and more mouths to feed, which in turn means more the need to free more land from those who are unable to hold it.

much like rice being plentiful in the east supporting an amazing population

[AntiochusIII]

Also the final group of Byzantine and Sassanid wars weren't normal wars. They've been called total wars.

Not in a modern sense, no; the respective empires were far from being "optimized" into full-scale wartime economies, fully operational ministries of war and propaganda and all that. But I agree that, ancient world logistics taken in consideration, it is a pretty sufficient expression.


Now, to OP's question:

1) Why and how did the Muslim Armies of the Arabian Peninsula advance so rapidly and so far?

Apart from the oft-mentioned good timing (the Byzantine Emperor on deathbed, the Persian Emperor not the best that have graced the Sassanid dynasty; the last two decades being constant -vicious- warfare between the two empires, etc.), I'd say that the early Arab generals were generally sorely underrated.

They did achieve amazing victories after all. Victories decisive enough to conquer Persia and drove Byzantium out of Syria quite completely.

Also, Turks aren't involved in Islamic affairs until about 1000 A.D. or some such.

Local factors also help. While the Sassanid Empire was outright conquered, the territories lost by the Byzantines to the Arabs embraced their new masters rather willingly. Blame it on Byzantine religious intolerance and exploitive taxes and stuff.

2) What were the contributions of the Romans to Western Civilization? Be sure to include, engineering, architecture, government, artistic, and philosophical achievements.

This is not an analytic question, but one based on facts and accepted lists. I'm sure you'll find your textbooks, wikipedia (yes, well, somewhat), and primary sources far more valuable than people giving armchair lectures on message boards.

[/HIS 105 student myself]

[cmacq]

Thats more about math and very much more recent, due to a decreased rate of death. More to do with the introduction of western medicines used to counter major disease.

[cmacq]

Beware those whom cast purls amongst swine.

sounds like an expert, or more like the history channel expert?

Also, Turks aren't involved in Islamic affairs until about 1000 A.D. or some such.
[/HIS 105 student myself]

Dude...
crack a real book.
If you will read again that was Turkic not the bloody Oghuz Turks.

Not in a modern sense

Again, the topic was Post-Roman Medieval not the modern period, but thats a given...
Maybe I should've written 'religious wars of annihilation.'

....but I like to dumb it down,
still
...for some I may not be able to dumb it down, enough?

You wont find a real answer to these questions on the history channel, in a textbook, and certainly not at wikipedia. But, you can try.

Dude...
crack a real book.
the ones with words...

Also, there are some additional factual problems with your post, but I'm going to let them ride for now.

cause thats just how I am.

[pezhetairoi]

I'm not particularly clear about the exact differences between christians that led to them welcoming the far more tolerant Muslims in Syria, but I think it had to do with Monophysitism, and I'm not clear how that differs from Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity. It's clear indeed that there was a general sent by Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor, named Omar (bin something, I remember not) who was quite the military genius. A pity the campaigns were not recorded, we may have drawn some lessons from them.

Amazing how much debate this is generating. I've been learning a lot here...

[The Persian Cataphract]

This happens to be an area of specialty for my own part, but I am not sure I've got the time to post an informative post about the whole ordeal; I'll let you guys know.

[cmacq]

This happens to be an area of specialty for my own part, but I am not sure I've got the time to post an informative post about the whole ordeal; I'll let you guys know.

please do as I am, by all means not an expert. I only know the basic outline, a few details, roughly how the subject transpired, and some recent theory on the subject.

As to my above post...
In my line, with 16 years of research, for the newbees, we use the term expert as a pejorative

as in instant-expert

and there's no end to the instant-experts.

[cmacq]

I'm not particularly clear about the exact differences between christians that led to them welcoming the far more tolerant Muslims in Syria, but I think it had to do with Monophysitism, and I'm not clear how that differs from Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity. It's clear indeed that there was a general sent by Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor, named Omar (bin something, I remember not) who was quite the military genius. A pity the campaigns were not recorded, we may have drawn some lessons from them.

Amazing how much debate this is generating. I've been learning a lot here...

I though the Persians actually controlled Syrian and Egypt when the Arab attacks began? Weren't the Greeks reduced to Constantinople at the time? If so the Arab war was initially against the Persians with the Greeks just regained some lost territory in Anatolia in the wake of the former's collapse ?

[pezhetairoi]

Nope, this was just after the Greeks gave the Persians the thrashing of their lives, and forced them to return everything they had conquered from the Greeks, and I'm guessing some extras too. So the Greeks controlled everything all the way to Egypt at this time. You mix up the first Caliphate with the Ottoman Turks, I suspect... The Byzantines were only ever reduced to Constantinople in the 1450s when the Turks were knocking politely at their doors with big knockers.

Persian Cataphract, do post soon. Nothing better than the resident expert on this.

[cmacq]

your right.

Constantinople in the 1450s

No, I was thinking of the AD 611 episode when the Persians took Syria and most of Anatolia. Heraclius countered in AD 613, but Shahrbaraz and Shahin defeated him near Antioch. Over the next 10 years the Persians took Palestine, Egypt and most of Anatolia. Meanwhile the Avars and Slavs took the Balkans and invaded Greece.

But Heraclius recovered in AD 622.

[pezhetairoi]

Oh, that one. As I read it I didn't get the impression they were reduced to SUCH bad straits. All that didn't happen concurrently, did it?

[tapanojum]

I'm not particularly clear about the exact differences between christians that led to them welcoming the far more tolerant Muslims in Syria, but I think it had to do with Monophysitism, and I'm not clear how that differs from Catholicism or Orthodox Christianity. It's clear indeed that there was a general sent by Abu Bakr, Mohammed's successor, named Omar (bin something, I remember not) who was quite the military genius. A pity the campaigns were not recorded, we may have drawn some lessons from them.

Amazing how much debate this is generating. I've been learning a lot here...

Which is why I wanted to start this topic. I learn much more through discussion than reading any book ever.

The Arabs on the frontier within both the Sassanid and Byzantine Empire defaulted to the Invading Arabs naturally. The Christians in places such as Syria also joined the Arab armies because the Orthodox Church wasn't very nice and also taxed them very heavily. The Christians became aware of not only the Muslim tolerance of Christianity, but also their lower taxation than the Byzantines.


And to answer cmacq, The Byzantines controled much land including Egypt, which was their richest region, which also fell to the Arabs with very little resistance.

[kambiz]

I don't know much about this period ,But AFAIK ,Romans (Or greeks !?) had better situation compare to Iranians. Before Yazdgerd III come to power ,Several kings set on the thrown and then did overthrown. This alone show the disasterious situation Iran had. While on the oher side ,Byzantines were vicotr of the war ,And thus had better military position. Also they had a good natural obstacle against arabs ,The sea.
And Heraclious was a competent emperor ,Unlike Yazdgerd III ,Who was a young boy when came to power. He was a good guy ,And certainly could be a good king ,But he wasn't the man to stop such a Sand Storm !

This happens to be an area of specialty for my own part, but I am not sure I've got the time to post an informative post about the whole ordeal; I'll let you guys know.

Please post yours TPC. Here is not enough resource (I mean trustable resources) regarding arab invasion. So your post would be appreciated a lot