The Military Power of the Muslim Arabs in the Early Conquests

The rise of Islam in the mid-7th century led to the collapse of the power equations in the world of that day. The new Muslim Arabs defeated the most important world powers in a marvelous military movement. They drew the great Sassanian Empire to a collapse and reached the political capital and religious center of the Roman Empire. The main problem the present article addresses is what made it possible for the Muslim Arabs to achieve such quick and stunning victories? Undoubtedly, in these miraculous victories, irrespective of the spiritual power of Islam materialized in the form of jihad and martyrdom-seeking, Muslims must also have been materially and militarily attained to a degree of strength in order to fulfill their religious or material aims. In this paper, the military power of the Arab Muslims was examined from two aspects of the Arab's military differences with Iranians and Romans and the new military tactics of the Arabs, adopted proportionate to the military genius of their commanders. It was found that agility, diligence, personal ingenuity, and the difference in the method of Arab's fighting on the one hand and the design of combat techniques, combining the Iranian and Roman methods of warfare with those of Arabs led to Arab's overthrowing Iran and Rome.