The Decisive Battles of World History

Lecture 8: 636 Yarmouk & al-Qadisiyyah—Islam Triumphs

x The Sassanian army of 30,000 to 60,000 boasted a number of

especially dangerous units, including a substantial corps of trained

war elephants imported from India. The Sassanians were renowned

for their excellent cavalry, especially a group of elite heavy cavalry

who were covered from head to foot in scaled metal armor and

whose horses were protected with metal scales, as well.

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battle, but the general pattern of the Muslim line fending off a series

of enemy frontal charges day after day was the same. Finally, the

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forces broke the Sassanian formation and won the battle.

x Just as Yarmouk resulted in dramatic and permanent changes to the

culture, language, and religion of the eastern Mediterranean, so,

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religion were wiped away, replaced with Islam. The old Persian

language and culture were blended with new Arabic elements.

x It is not an overstatement to say that, in cultural, linguistic, and

religious terms, the map of the modern Middle East was drawn in

the early 7th century A.D. The present (and the future) of the region

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Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests.

Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert.

Haldon, Byzantium at War, AD 600–1453.

The History of al-Tabari, vols. 11 (Blankinship, trans.) and 12

(Friedmann, trans.).

Nicolle, Yarmuk 636 AD.

Suggested Reading