The Era of Suleyman the Magnificent: Crisis of Orientation

Extract

When the Prophet Muhammad died on 7 June 632, the larger part of Arabia had already accepted Islam. In fact, Islam had created a solid Arab community that dominated Arabia and was ready to begin its amazing expansive movement in world history. The Arab conquests put an end to the Sassanid Empire and deprived the Byzantine Empire of its Asiatic dominions up to the Taurus and all its African possessions. Muslim troops crossed Gibraltar and subdued almost all the Iberian peninsula. In brief: with their conquests in the seventh and eighth centuries (634–751) the Arabs became the neighbors of the Franks and Byzantines on the other side of the Mediterranean. In Asia the subjection of Persia brought them into northern India and the Turkish vassal states of China in Central Asia.