War · 632–750 CE
The Arab Muslim conquests
Damascus (Syria)
Within a few years of Muhammad's death, Arab Muslim armies defeated the Byzantines at Yarmuk and the Sasanian Persians at al-Qadisiyya (both 636), taking Syria, Iraq, Jerusalem (638) and Egypt (639–642); Persian resistance was broken at Nahavand in 642 and the last shah was killed in 651. Under the Umayyad caliphs, ruling from Damascus from 661, the conquests reached Spain and Sindh in 711, until the Franks defeated a raid near Tours in 732.
Why it mattered
By 750 Muslim rulers governed, by various estimates, 11–15 million km² from Iberia to the Indus, and Arabic, made the language of government under the Umayyads, became a shared language of religion, law and learning across this vast area.
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