Chapter 14
CONCLUSION
One might usefully divide the military history of the Islamic peoples into
three broad periods, the Great Conquest, the Ottoman era, and the post-
colonial or modern period. These broad divisions capture the most sig-
nificant events by the most militarily significant of the Islamic peoples
and nations. Each of these general eras bears an overriding question for
the reader of history. The questions come easily, but the answers will not—
still, we have attempted to address them.
The great Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries were
simply astonishing and without precedent—or antecedent. Never before
or since in history has such an unlikely people as the nomadic tribes of
Arabia produced such an astonishing wave of conquests. In a few years
the proud old Sassanid Empire was destroyed, and the mighty Byzantine
Empire humiliated and reduced to a shadow of its recent past. The lands
that now form Afghanistan, the state of Kashmir, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Jordan,
Israel, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, and Spain all fell to Mus-
lim armies.
The Arab armies were not numerous, not terribly well armed, and of
no better “warrior stock” than their adversaries. Nor did they enjoy a
particularly superior military tradition—they fought well against cavalry
armies, infantry armies, archers, well-drilled troops, rough hordes, and
every conceivable combination. It is difficult to suggest that they consis-
tently fielded better tactical leaders, and the Emperor Heraclius, an early