, ñIn less than 100 years, the warriors of Islam conquered an empire that stretched from Spain to India.ñ
The great Islamic conquests began under Omar's caliphate (AD 634-644). His Arab horsemen carried Islam into the heart of the classical civilizations of Persia and Byzantium. In AD 636, the Battle of Yarmuk ended Byzantine domination over Syria and led to the capture of the city of Damascus. Led by Amr (AD 580-664), the Arabs conquered Byzantine-ruled Egypt in 639. In the east, the Muslims won the Battle of Qadissiya in AD 637, which brought down the Sassanid Empire of the Persians.
In AD 661, Muawiya became caliph, founding the Ummayyad dynasty. He transferred the imperial capital from Medina to Damascus, where he set up a splendid court and encouraged the arts and letters. Under the Umayyads, the conquests continued. The Arab cavalry, which rarely numbered more than 20,000 in the largest battles, conquered North Africa, founding the city of Kairoun, in modern-day Tunisia, in AD 670. The Muslims also advanced across Asia to the banks of the Indus, where they camped in AD 711. As their conquests spread, the Arabs converted local peoples to Islam, either by the sword or by the Koran. The new converts in turn embarked on conquests. Tariq ibn Ziyad, a North African Berber, crossed the Straits of Gibraltar in AD 711 and began the conquest of Spain. Carried along by their momentum, a few Muslim troops reached Poitiers, in the heart of France, where they were stopped in AD 732 by Charles Martel (AD 688-741).
~Arabs and others~
The Arabs, until a few years before a backward desert people, found themselves the rulers of a vast, diverse empire. They did not seek to convert all their subjects. They respected not only Jews and Christians, regarded as "people of the Book", but also Zoroastrians and Buddhists. They used their skills to translate the writings of the Greek and Roman, Persian, and Indian civilizations. From the conquered peoples, the Arabs learned to found cities, building palaces and mosques. They developed a refined way of life, symbolized by the ºhammamº, or bathhouse, found in every Muslim town. But Arabs dominated the empire. Even new converts to Islam were considered second-class citizens and had to find protectors among the Arab tribes. At least one zealous caliph, Yazid II, treated the non-Muslims harshly, forcing Christians to wear special clothing as a sign of humiliation.
Civil conflict began early in the history of the Islamic Empire. One sect opposed to the Umayyad caliphs, the Kharijites, captured Mecca in AD 747 and rallied all of North Africa to their cause. The Shiites, followers of the assassinated fourth caliph Ali, also rebelled. Hussein (AD 626-680), Ali's son, challenged the caliph Yazid, Muawiya's son and successor. Yazid killed Hussein, along with his followers, near Karbala in AD 680. In 740, Zayd, Hussein's grandson, in turn rebelled and suffered the same fate as his grandfather at Kufa. In AD 747-748, there was another revolt, this time in Khorasan (Iran). This uprising was to result in the bloody end of Ummayyad splendour.î d ╠
