not merely stop and go at that great oasis city. They
stayed for months at a time while contacts were made,
negotiations carried out, hospitality extended and
provided. Arabian traders had long been part and parcel
of the social, cultural, and economic life of the lands
they were to conquer.
And the timing was perfect. Just as Islam had come
into being, a vast vacuum of power had been created.
The two great empires that had controlled the Middle
East—the Byzantines to the west and the Persians to the
east—were fading fast, having worn each other out with
constant warfare. The Persians could no longer even
aʃord the upkeep on the vast irrigation systems fed by
the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. The Byzantines’
hold on Damascus and Jerusalem was tenuous at best.
Both empires were collapsing from within, their power
waning just as the Muslim nation was born, opening its
eyes to what was practically an open invitation to enter
and take over.
There was no imposition of Islam. On the contrary,
Omar discouraged conversion. He wanted to keep Islam
pure—that is, Arab—an attitude that would earn him no
love among the Persians, who felt especially demeaned
by it and would convert in large numbers after his death.
He even ordered two new garrison cities built in Iraq—
Basra in the south and Kufa in the center—to protect his
administrators and troops from what he saw as Persian
decadence.