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World History 1

<OpenstaxParagraph>
	It was not always clear that the Arab-Muslims would be successful against the Byzantines and the Persians, the last empires of antiquity. Nonetheless, starting in 634 and continuing into the early eighth century, they found enormous success conquering much of the territory around the Mediterranean basin and central Asia, going as far west as Spain and Portugal and all the way to the Indus River valley in the east. The new Islamic state, or <OpenstaxTerm>caliphate</OpenstaxTerm> (an area under the control of a caliph), was larger than the realm of Alexander the Great, the Romans, or the Han Chinese; it was the largest empire the world had yet seen (<a href="#fig-00001">Figure 11.13</a>).
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxFigure id="fig-00001" src="https://openstax.org/apps/archive/20240226.174525/resources/3c8a10553ac22966f0a75b235b5ec12f010d8de2" alt="A map of southern Europe, northern Africa, and southwestern Asia is shown. The Adriatic Sea, Mediterranean Sea, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Persian Gulf (Arabian Gulf), the Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian Sea are labeled. The northern coastline of Africa, all of the Arabian peninsula, and the land extending north from there to Turkey and then east through Iran and into Afghanistan and Pakistan is highlighted orange and labeled “Islamic Caliphate.” The cities labeled on the map from west to east are: Alexandria, Constantinople, Damascus, Jerusalem, Medina, Mecca, Mosul, Ctesiphon, Aden, and Muscat." mediaType="image/jpg" width="1299" height="880" />
<OpenstaxFigureText width="1299">
	<strong>Figure 11.13</strong> This map shows the extent the new Islamic caliphate had achieved by the end of its first dynasty, the Umayyads. During the eighth century CE, the Umayyads ruled the world’s largest empire. (attribution: Copyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)
</OpenstaxFigureText>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The crucial early years of Islamic expansion were overseen by the first four caliphs, a group of rulers who came to be called the “rightly guided” or <OpenstaxTerm>Rashidun</OpenstaxTerm>. These four figures—<OpenstaxTerm>Abu Bakr</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>Umar</OpenstaxTerm>, <OpenstaxTerm>Uthman</OpenstaxTerm>, and the originally overlooked son-in-law of Muhammad, <OpenstaxTerm>Ali</OpenstaxTerm>—ruled between 632 and 661, a period when much Byzantine and Persian territory was conquered, and the message of Islam spread throughout a predominantly Christian Middle East. While the Byzantines and the Persians had employed the Arabian Ghassanids and Lakhmids to guard their borders and serve in their wars, the arrival of the Arab-Muslim armies was unlike anything either empire had seen before.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The Byzantine emperor <OpenstaxTerm>Heraclius</OpenstaxTerm>, heralded for bringing victory over the Persians, was not able to enjoy his triumph for very long. Meanwhile, defeated Sasanian Persia was coping with the effects of a destabilizing civil war. The ruler who ultimately emerged in 632, <OpenstaxTerm>Yazdegerd III</OpenstaxTerm>, was little more than a puppet king, a child figurehead, and the once-unified Sasanian state devolved into a fractured entity ruled by the noble families.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxNote>
	<OpenstaxNoteTitle> Link to Learning </OpenstaxNoteTitle> 
	<OpenstaxParagraph>
		This brief audio essay from BBC Sounds discusses the development of the <a href="https://openstax.org/l/77ArabIslamic">Arab-Islamic conquests</a> and their long-term successes.
	</OpenstaxParagraph>
</OpenstaxNote>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	The Arab-Muslim armies began their invasion with the provinces of <OpenstaxTerm>Iraq</OpenstaxTerm> and <OpenstaxTerm>Syria</OpenstaxTerm> before moving eastward into the Iranian plateau and westward into Egypt. On all fronts, the first decades of the conflict proved extraordinarily successful for the conquerors. Shortly after winning several skirmishes and capturing the Syrian city of <OpenstaxTerm>Damascus</OpenstaxTerm>, the <OpenstaxTerm>Arab-Muslims</OpenstaxTerm> bested the Byzantine army at the <OpenstaxTerm>Battle of Yarmuk</OpenstaxTerm> in 636. Unable to defend the remaining cities of the region, the Byzantines then abandoned <OpenstaxTerm>Greater Syria</OpenstaxTerm>, consisting of what are today Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria. The Arab-Muslim armies continued northward and westward, laying siege to and capturing the Egyptian port city of <OpenstaxTerm>Alexandria</OpenstaxTerm> in 641. Many other Byzantine provinces soon followed. In Iraq, the armies of Persia lost to the Arab-Muslims at the <OpenstaxTerm>Battle of Qadisiyya</OpenstaxTerm>, bringing an end to any sustained resistance by the Persians.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Still, the conquest of <OpenstaxTerm>Persia</OpenstaxTerm> proved to be a longer-term process. Sasanian-controlled territory was vast and geographically diverse, and the independence the Sasanian nobility had wrested from the central government following the war with the Byzantines meant the Arab-Muslims needed to negotiate with many local governors and landed elites for the surrender of their territory. At the same time, dynamics between the Sasanian nobility and the lower classes had already begun changing. The nobility existed in a well-established court culture and practiced the traditional Persian religion of <OpenstaxTerm>Zoroastrianism</OpenstaxTerm>. Outside this elite circle, however, Zoroastrianism had long been declining in popularity, while other religious traditions, including <OpenstaxTerm>Nestorian Christianity</OpenstaxTerm> and <OpenstaxTerm>Manichaeism</OpenstaxTerm>, grew. The collapse of the Sasanian ruling family in Persia also provides a unique glimpse into something that had not happened among the elite before: the brief rise of a female ruler, <OpenstaxTerm>Boran</OpenstaxTerm>. The daughter of Khosrow II, Boran came to power briefly during the civil war after the Byzantine victory over her father. While such opportunities for female power in the region were few and far between, her rule underscores that seventh-century Persia was already a state and a people in transition, and the arrival of the Arab-Muslims with the cultural practices of Arabia and the religion of Islam only expedited change.
</OpenstaxParagraph>
<OpenstaxParagraph>
	Although the Byzantines and Persians had put up resistance, by the 650s much of their territory had been taken by the new Islamic state of the <OpenstaxTerm>Rashidun</OpenstaxTerm>. Heraclius died in 641, with the territories he and the Byzantines had fought to retake from the Persians largely lost. The <OpenstaxTerm>Byzantine Empire</OpenstaxTerm> survived the <OpenstaxTerm>Arab-Muslim conquests</OpenstaxTerm>, but it never again controlled much of the territory of the old Roman east. The Sasanian ruler Yazdegerd III fled east to escape capture by the Arab-Muslims or their supporters, spending much of his short life on the run before being killed by his own people in 651. By that time, the entirety of the Persian Empire had effectively been brought into the control of the new Islamic state.
</OpenstaxParagraph>

11.2.2 Conquering Persia and the Byzantine Empire

1 Understanding the Past

1.1 Developing a Global Perspective

1.1.1 World History as Preparation for Life after College

1.1.2 World History and Global Citizenship

1.1.3 Features of This Textbook

1.2 Primary Sources

1.2.1 Learning to Evaluate Documents and Images

1.2.2 Documentary Sources: Competing Narratives

1.2.3 Textual Sources: The Importance of Language

1.2.4 Hidden in History

1.3 Causation and Interpretation in History

1.3.1 Levels of Causation

1.3.2 Interpretation in History

2 Early Humans

2.1 Early Human Evolution and Migration

2.1.1 Human Evolution

2.1.2 Why Did Humans Move and Where Did They Go?

2.1.3 Early Human Technologies

2.2 People in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.1 Ice, Ice, and More Ice

2.2.2 Life in the Paleolithic Age

2.2.3 Diverse Paleolithic Peoples

2.3 The Neolithic Revolution

2.3.1 The Development of Agriculture

2.3.2 How Farming Changed the Human Experience

2.3.3 Neolithic Peoples

3 Early Civilizations and Urban Societies

3.1 Early Civilizations

3.1.1 Attributes of Early Civilizations

3.1.2 The First Urban Societies

3.2 Ancient Mesopotamia

3.2.1 The Rise and Eclipse of Sumer

3.2.2 The Rise of the World’s First Empire

3.2.3 Later Empires in Mesopotamia

3.2.4 Society and Religion in Ancient Mesopotamia

3.3 Ancient Egypt

3.3.1 The Origins of Ancient Egypt

3.3.2 The Age of Pyramid Building

3.3.3 A Second Age of Egyptian Greatness

3.4 The Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.1 The Origins of the Indus Valley Civilization

3.4.2 Trade, Writing, and Religion

3.4.3 The Era of Decline

4 The Near East

4.1 From Old Babylon to the Medes

4.1.1 Power Politics in the Near East

4.1.2 Foreign Affairs and Trade

4.1.3 Daily Life and the Family in the Near East

4.2 Egypt’s New Kingdom

4.2.1 The Hyksos in Egypt

4.2.2 The Pharaohs of the New Kingdom

4.2.3 Egypt’s Foreign Policy

4.3 The Persian Empire

4.3.1 The Rise of Persia

4.3.2 Darius I and the Reorganization of the Empire

4.3.3 Persian Culture and Daily Life

4.4 The Hebrews

4.4.1 The History of the Hebrews

4.4.2 The Culture of the Hebrews

5 Asia in Ancient Times

5.1 Ancient China

5.1.1 Prehistoric China

5.1.2 Early Dynastic China

5.1.3 The Zhou Dynasty

5.1.4 The Warring States Era and Qin Unification

5.2 The Steppes

5.2.1 The Nomadic Culture of the Steppes

5.2.2 Tribes, Confederations, and Settled Neighbors

5.3 Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia

5.3.1 Ancient Korea

5.3.2 Ancient Japan

5.4 Vedic India to the Fall of the Maurya Empire

5.4.1 Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

5.4.2 The Aryans and Brahmanism

5.4.3 Buddhism

5.4.4 The Mauryan Empire

5.4.5 The Gupta Dynasty

6 Mediterranean Peoples

6.1 Early Mediterranean Peoples

6.1.1 The Late Bronze Age World

6.1.2 Phoenicians, Greeks, and Etruscans

6.2 Ancient Greece

6.2.1 Archaic Greece

6.2.2 Sparta and Athens

6.2.3 Classical Greece

6.3 The Hellenistic Era

6.3.1 The Kingdom of Macedon

6.3.2 Hellenistic Culture

6.4 The Roman Republic

6.4.1 The Foundation and Function of the Roman Republic

6.4.2 The Expansion of the Roman Republic

6.5 The Age of Augustus

6.5.1 The First Triumvirate

6.5.2 From Republic to Principate

7 Experiencing the Roman Empire

7.1 The Daily Life of a Roman Family

7.1.1 The Structure of Roman Families

7.1.2 A Day in the Life of a Roman Family

7.1.3 What Family Meant in Rome

Question	Answer
an area under the control of a Muslim ruler called a caliph	caliphate
a term meaning “rightly guided” that describes the first four caliphs after Muhammad’s death: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali	Rashidun