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

Probably to just buy a book from Amazon (or just pirate a PDF) for like $15. I know alot about historical Islam, not so much about religious Islam.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Arab-Conquests-Spread-Changed/dp/0306817403

And fun fact my username is actually named after https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid.

He conquered the Persian empire, Egypt, arabia, Byzantine empire, etc. He had over 200 battles winning every single one, dozens being outnumbered 7:1+. He is known as literally one of the best generals ever. He actually defeated the prophet in battle but the prophet made a treaty with his tribe and the deal was that he'd convert to Islam.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Trench

This battle ^ ^ was pretty much the most important one in Islam. It was between the Muslims and the quarish tribe. The Muslims were outnumbered outgunned and surrounded, and the city was sieged. As a last resort prphpet commanded everyone to dig a trench around the city, which stopped the camel's and horses. Since it was in a desert and they couldn't cross the trench many of them died due to freezing temperatures at night. And this battle is also significant because if the Muslims lost they would've all been killed. And this battle also started the hatred between the Jews and Muslims. The Jews and Muslims had treaties, but during this battle the quarish tribe attacked from the north the Jews made a deal with the quarish tribe they would also flank them from behind (now the Muslims were outnumbered 3:1), somehow they prevailed, and The Sword of Allah was born (b/c he saw this victory as proof that Muslims were God's chosen people because a storm came that night and killed their troops). And as for the Jews after they broke the treaties they were exiled or killed.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Qaynuqa

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banu_Nadir

There's your history lesson for today ☪

> You don't seem to understand that muslims were a extreme minority when they invaded the Levant and Egypt.

I perfectly understand this because I have read a book about it. I can source my claims if you want to.

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Arab-Conquests-Spread-Changed/dp/0306817403

>They couldn't just go murder everybody because that wouldn't make sense at all. By surpression they managed to get extremely rich from which in turn they could expand their huge caliphate.

This is both correct. Your interpretation is what is wrong with it. Why on earth would they want people to convert if they earned them so much money? They actually tried to make it harder for people to be acknowledge as Muslim.

>And both the Levant and Egypt could be conquered because there was a huge war that exhausted both the Byzantines and Sassanids leaving them vunerable.

This is also true, but the local population often just let them take control of their cities without a fight and one of the reasons for that is that they wouldn't persecute them for their beliefs, at least aside from paying taxes. The abbassids took much much longer to defeat the north african berbers because they did actually resist.

Most of my knowledge on this subject comes from a great book written by Hugh Kennedy, [The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In] (http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Arab-Conquests-Changed/dp/0306817403/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414391328&sr=8-1&keywords=conquests+of+islam). I would highly recommend it for someone interested in the spread of Islam and Arabic language/culture.

To answer your question, I would say that there was very little ethnic expansion of Arabs during the early conquests of Islam, and what expansion did occur was much later and was restricted to areas in close proximity to the Arabic Peninsula (Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, as examples). The predominant influence of the invading Arabic armies in North Africa, the Middle East, Persia, Northern India, was most definitely cultural. The invading Arab armies were content to appropriate their authority by conquering local lords and then introducing elements of Islamic law as well as conducting all official business in Arabic. The truly ethnic 'Arabic' peoples of the conquests that did not dwell in Arabia proper were almost universally warriors or administrators during the initial stages of the conquests; the expansion of the Arabic language and culture into places that we think of as mainstays today was a much more gradual process that involved 'Arabization' of the native populations with Islam and the written Arabic script.

Over time, this influence led to ethnically non-Arab peoples (like the Berbers, who had been around for a long time (1000+ years, at least) before the Arab conquests in North Africa) inheriting elements of the Arabic identity through the use of their written script and (eventually) the practice of Islam. White Europeans living in Hispania became painfully aware of this development when Berbers with Arabic names who practiced Islam (aka, the Moors) set up shop in Cordoba for the next 500 years. They were led by Tariq ibn Ziyad, an Arabized Berber who was likely born into slavery but went on to become the military leader of the Moorish invasion as well as the first governor of Al-Andalus.

I would say the exception to this rule of adoption of Arabic script and customs would be Persia, which already had an entrenched bureaucracy and a literate and educated populace relative to the other conquered peoples, along with a relatively strong regional identity for the times. The Arab conquerors had a significantly more relaxed approach to dealing with the Persians because of these reasons. It's not a coincidence that the Arabic influence in Persia, except for Islam itself, is largely gone. Many historians would argue that this relationship between the conquering Arabs and the Persians over a thousand years ago plays a direct role in the ongoing Arabic-Persian, Sunni-Shia conflicts we see in the present day.

I had a post regarding my recommended books on the rise of Islam. I'll post it here again for your benefit:

> Here's the best ones: Efraim Karsh's Islamic Imperialism: A History and Robert Hoyland's In God's Path: The Arab Conquests and the Creation of an Islamic Empire

> Edit: I have read the two books aforementioned, but I'd also recommend this book, which I haven't read: Hugh Kennedy's The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. All these books fit your criteria. I also have Tom Holland's In the Shadow of the Sword: The Birth of Islam and the Rise of the Global Arab Empire, but I think this is the least recommendable because of the controversy swirling around it and the documentary it spawned. But it is interesting nevertheless.

I hope this will help!

EDIT: I'll add more recommendations, in regards to the Golden Age of Islam:

• G.R. Hawtings's The First Dynasty of Islam
  
• Amira K. Bennison's The Great Caliphs: The Golden Age of the 'Abbasid Empire
  
• Benson Bobrick's The Caliph's Splendor: Islam and the West in the Golden Age of Baghdad
  
• Halil Inalcik's The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600
  
• S. Frederick Starr's Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane
  
• Michael H. Morgan's Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists
  
• Jim al-Khalili's The House of Wisdom: How Arabic Science Saved Ancient Knowledge and Gave Us The Renaissance

The Great Arab Conquests, was a book I read on the conquests themselves a few years back. It's a pretty good look at the subject, and also discusses one of the biggest issues on the subject is that our records of that period of time are very limited.

Have you tried this?
https://www.amazon.com/Great-Arab-Conquests-Spread-Changed/dp/0306817403

http://www.amazon.com/Great-Arab-Conquests-Spread-Changed/dp/0306817403

I read this and I think it's a good place to start, good introduction. It's not hard to read, has interesting stories and events included and has solid references.