War of the Worlds - EP 1 - Intro / Early Islamic Conquest

[Music] welcome to flashpoint history's War of the Worlds this is episode 1 the introduction and early Islamic conquest elective thanks to all at Gaara nose for giving me permission to air his music on the podcast if you're enjoying this it's called the garden of delight and more can be found at Round Sky music calm this whole series initially began as an attempt to tell the story of Hernan Cortes and the Aztec but in reality it was an excuse to travel down to Mexico City I wanted to convince my wife to go announced ly there really wasn't that much convincing involved we're both travel people she's latina she speaks perfect Spanish and the destination sells itself Mexico City being one of the largest cities on the planet has culture and nightlife and music and amazing food and of course not to mention plenty of history and there is nothing like being able to travel for the purposes of obtaining research that makes one feel very self justified or even for that matter a little self-righteous so the idea was to get down there visit the appropriate historical sites getting a couple of museum visits and if I could somehow manage to get my hands on some historical documents then I could have my wife translate now if everything went to plan I was hoping to make it back with enough time to sit down crank out the whole thing in one sitting and then basically have three at the most four episodes and then be done that is of course until I started reading about the guy the more I read about Cortes more fascinated I became because I couldn't quite understand what made a mind like his work the history books I read explained who he was what he did and the order in which he did it but the biggest problem I saw was that this view was a microcosm on the man and didn't really seem to address the motivating factors of the time period in which he lived it didn't seem to explain in detail the macrocosm that would otherwise motivate some to end up doing what he did Cortez in the end was a man who decided to basically leave behind a life of luxury and ease and then spit in the face of his own government and then proceeded to take 500 men into a relatively undiscovered part of the world to take on the civilization of several million and somehow in the process bring that civilization to its knees folks this is the type of pipe dream that when you fail you die and I think that's what makes it very difficult for somebody in our modern era to understand because most people nowadays would probably not be even willing to think about taking a risk like this well that leaves a bit of a quandary because I realize that in order to really learn about Cortez you have to learn a little bit about medieval Spain and in order to learn about medieval Spain you got to know something about the Reconquista and then in order to learn about the Reconquista you have to know something about the early Islamic conquest and well crap there goes my three to four Episode series and instead I've got myself a major project on my hands but the more that I thought about it the more I realized that you know what this might not actually be a bad way to go one of the most difficult aspects of starting a new series as far as history podcasting goes is just figuring out a starting point history after all is all about one thing leading to another so after wrangling with the idea for a while I decided that the format of this podcast is going to be a bunch of primers we're going to be starting with the early Islamic conquest and then move on to Spain under the Umayyads then move on to the early Reconquista followed by the rise of the Spanish monarchy under isabella and then the beginning of the Spanish Empire so I might as well say it right now one of the my biggest pet peeves as far as history podcast go is when somebody takes an amazing time period and then rushes through it and then jumps onto something else and yes I get it I'm going to be guilty of that but based on the research that I've done so far I feel kind of compelled to give you this information and if you don't dig the whole primer format you know what I can respect you for that what I'd recommend you do is perhaps skip ahead to the part where I start talking about the late Reconquista because at that point the podcast is going to take a much more chronological approach so before I begin this podcast let's talk about the guidelines and the ground rules it's one thing to talk about the Romans and the Carthaginians and antiquity in general and it's another thing entirely when one starts talking about Christianity or Islam or the descendants of either the Aztec or the Inca nations because at that point you're talking about topics that are extremely personal to modern people the intention of this podcast is not to criticize or antagonize anybody's faith or religion or beliefs but there's going to be a lot on warfare in the context of religion and in general you can't segregate war from cruelty and in this story all sides are going to have blood on their hands some more literally than others along those same lines this podcast is not meant to be a defender of the faith or an apologist or an advertisement towards any particular religion I'm going to do my best to keep things as even as possible but keep in mind that this is simply a history enthusiast recounting of what is going to be a long but interesting journey given from a secular perspective ok good I'm glad I got that off my chest officially stepping off the soapbox now so once again if you're not into the whole intro to an intro to an intro to an intro because heaven knows that books like that can get a little tedious and want to jump directly into the middle of things and please wait for the late Reconquista or later episodes to begin however for those kind people who are willing to grant me a little bit of historical latitude by sticking to the original program then we shall begin with the early Islamic conquest and as for your cooperation with the whole jumping overtimes thing I can only give you the beginning of Shakespeare's Henry v and what he said in prologue I say to you with conviction quote Oh for a muse of fire that would send the brightest heaven of invention a kingdom for a stage Prince's to act and monarchs to behold the swelling scene for it is your thoughts that now must deck our kings carry them here and there jumping over times turning the accomplishment of many years into an hourglass for the which supply admit me chorus to this history who prologue like your humble patience pray gently to hear kindly to judge our play end quote and so our story begins in Arabia now this was the Arabian Peninsula of the late 6th and early 7th century this is a place where the climate and the land much as it is now was incredibly harsh the term unforgiving was understatement and this Bread of people that had learned fiercely to adapt they were pragmatic to an extreme why because they had to be Arabia and this century was a fractured land dominated by rival city-states and warring tribal cultures it was a geographical and political wilderness but despite this it was also a land of trade routes and thus had incredible potential as long as the people of the Arabian Peninsula however were fighting one another they were pretty much ignored by everyone else and what do we mean by everyone else well to the north were the two great empires of the time in the northwest you had the remnants of the Romans or as historians will one day name them the Byzantine and to the northeast were the Persians or at least the sassanid dynasty of the Persians these two massive empires were engaged engaged in mortal combat that is now imagine a massive land war something akin to like maybe Germany versus Russia fighting in the Second World War you know maybe not that big but a massive war nonetheless between two big empires now imagine that war instead of going on for years it went on for decades I throw that out the window and imagine it going on for centuries granted it wasn't a continuous thing but it was kind of an on-and-off affair but the effect was still there both civilizations had effectively beaten each other to a pulp now there was one thing that both the persians and the romans had in common they both thought of the arabian peoples as being barbarians at the most they considered the arabs a nuisance that is if the arabs could get their act together long enough and cooperate long enough to attack a roman convoy or a Persian stronghold and this mentality persisted because you know if you're the big kid on the block your focus is going to be that other big kid on the block is bearing down on you your focus of attention would be that other power who you had been at war with for longer than anyone on your side could even remember you know it'd be that group that you and your father and your father's father and your father's father's father's father have been fighting since antiquity in fact some of you don't even remember the reason why you're fighting just as a historical side note I personally find this interesting and it would be awesome to hear from anybody in the audience who would be willing to comment on this there seems to be a lot of similarities between what's happening here and what will be happening a few hundred years down the line between the Chinese and the Mongols prior to the rise of jenga's Khan but going back to what our original narrative the bottom line was that the persians and the romans or byzantine whichever way you like we're so busy trying to kill one another that the peoples of arabia were largely ignored it was into this political climate that in the year 570 a man by the name of muhammad was born this is a man that would one day be known to the muslims as their prophet not much is actually known of his childhood other than than he was orphaned at a very early age and came under the protection of his extended family he was part of the tribe of quash part of the banu hashim clan but as he was growing up he joined his family on trading journeys via caravan and through this gained both an education and variance and trade and travel and he seems to have been very gifted at negotiation even from early on he was given the names al-amin meaning trustworthy or al-sadiq meaning truthful so to give you an example of his diplomacy for the contemporary historian if in a shack in the year 605 there was a dispute that occurred about the blackstone also known as the al hajar al Aswad and for those of you not familiar with the Blackstone it's a religious relic that is embedded into the corner of the Kaaba and the Kaaba is a giant cube like building that sits at the center of the al-masjid al-haram in Mecca which is considered to be the most sacred mosque in Islam according to even a Shaq's rendition the rulers of Mecca could not agree on how to replace the stone into the Kaaba after renovations were done the leaders of the various tribes wanted the honor and they were even considering war to resolve the issue it is said that Muhammad placed the stone in the center of a cloth and had all the leaders hold a portion of the cloth bringing it to the kaaba at which point he himself lifted it and returned it to its resting place thus restoring honor to all involved and preventing bloodshed it was around the Year 610 according to Islamic scripture that Muhammad began to have visions he began to have revelations of what he perceived as the Word of God these were given to him by the angel Gabriel at the cave of Hira on a mountain known as jamal al noor meaning the mountain of light it was here that the quran the sacred texts of Islam began the writer Albert Hourani in his book a history of the Arab people's talks about this quote he became a wanderer among the rocks and then one day perhaps when he was about forty years old something happened some contact with the supernatural known to later generations as the night of power or destiny in one version an angel seen in the form of a man on the horizon called to him to become the of God end quote Mohammed continued to have revelations after this which he wrote down and then later started to preach as a result he began to gain followers but his preaching was that of a monotheistic religion which was not readily accepted by the establishment of Mecca they were for the most part polytheistic and their economy to some extent was based on pilgrimage to the Kaaba where the polytheistic statues and icons and whatnot were stored as one can imagine if someone is coming into town and telling you something that is contrary to what you believe in it's going to spur a lot of resentment and it did but for the most part this was held in check as Muhammad's extended family still had a lot of sway in the politics of the city of Mecca it was in the year 621 when things started to really speed up for Muhammad it was this year that he had his famous Night Journey this was known as the Ezra and Niraj which was described as both a physical and also a spiritual encounter according to Islamic texts he wrote on the back of a steed known as bou rack which according to Islamic mythology was a winged horse with the head of a man and it was on this that he traveled the extent of the land to the furthest mosque which at the time was the al-aksa mosque in Jerusalem and it was from here that he apparently ascended into heaven and then conversed with God in fact the Dome of the rock you know the beautiful golden dome temple which was built later under the Umayyads in Jerusalem in 688 is considered the place where Muhammad was remembered as ascending into heaven this journey reaffirmed his belief and that of his followers for that matter that he was indeed the prophet of God as preachings as a result only continued and intensified and he attracted even more adherence now as it mentioned to you before he was holding on by a tiny little thread in Mecca in fact it was his extended family that were keeping most of isn't agnus at bay but in 622 his extended family died and Muhammad found himself in a situation where his own life was beginning to get threatened not not just to his life but the lives of his followers and so in 622 Muhammad had what was known as the Ezra or the escape or fleeing from Mecca he traveled 200 miles to the north to the Oasis settlement of Yathrib which was later to be known as the city of Medina and it was here in Medina that he made a huge splash the delegation of 12 tribes which was considered to be the aristocracy or oligarchy that ran the place asked Muhammad to serve as an arbitrator and in this position he started to gain power and more followers and he started to unite them under the auspices of Islam despite this Muhammad was by no means safe the people of Mecca still wanted his blood and he was surrounded by hostile tribes both to the north and to the east and he knew that in order to basically stay alive he needed to continue this consolidation of power he banished the local Jewish tribes and then he proceeded to bring in more followers and then organize them into a fighting force this was going to be the prototype of what one day would be a very formidable Muslim army but at this point all he had was enough people to basically raid the incoming and outgoing convoys into Mecca these convoys were an insane source of wealth Muhammad and his followers started to really profit and it wasn't just that the more success they had the more prestige they gained the more audacious they became and it was a total snowball effect between the money that could be made from convoy rating and the unifying factor that was the new religion of Islam it served as a very compelling reason for more people to join under the Muslim banner and as a result the Muslim army only grew in size but of course and everybody was happy about this the people of Mecca who are getting royally shafted out of this we're beginning to feel this massive dent in their economy and began organizing themselves for a more major armed conflict a full-scale war between Medina and Mecca was going to be inevitable now I'm not going to be able to go into all the minor battles and skirmishes and this that the other thing because in the end there's just too many of them and my pronunciation I might as well say this right now is going to be off and for that I apologize ahead of time because my intent is not to butcher this interesting and beautiful language but the take home message that I want to emphasize is that there is indeed a recurring motif that seems to persist throughout the entire early Islamic conquest and that's that those who flocked to the banner that was Islam whether it be for the defense of the city of Medina or later fighting for Mohammed or later than that fighting for the caliphs many of them were extremely motivated at what they were doing and based on my research I don't think it was just simply for the acquisition of material wealth or money or to expand the Empire but rather many of them were fighting for the idea that there was something bigger than themselves this was a major transition you know I said mentioned before the Arabian Peninsula was an incredibly harsh environment and in order for someone to survive they had to have a certain degree of loyalty to their family whether tribe or the community in order to make it and that was going to change with Islam in his book the great Arab conquests Hugh Kennedy puts us into perspective quote indeed without kin a man and his family could not survive in the desert beasts might die grazing fail wells dry up and enemies pounced there was no police force not even a corrupt and inefficient one no ruler to whom the victim could appeal only the bonds of kinship real or fictional could protect a man offer help in times of need offer protection or the threat of vengeance in time of attack a man without kin was lost in some ways the early Muslim leadership set out to destroy or at least reduce the loyalty to tribe the Muslim community the Ummah was to be a new sort of tribe based not on dissent but on commitment to the new religion the acceptance that Allah was the one true God and that Muhammad was His Prophet the Ummah would offer the protection and security that people had previously been given by their tribe end quote this unifying commitment was going to be needed as the early Islamic community was almost always outnumbered and the armed conflict between Mecca and Medina was only heating up this conflict between the two city-states began with what was essentially just a bunch of skirmishes however and I say that with an exclamation point rather than with a comma the first major recorded confrontation began in 624 at the Battle of Badr this was a situation where three hundred Muslim warriors took on what was essentially a major convoy defended by over a thousand quashed troops from Mecca and despite being outnumbered the more highly motivated Muslim fighters from Medina took the day by direct frontal attack this took the enemy of my surprise and the less motivated mechons is basically dispersed but things weren't always going to be victorious or easy a year later at the Battle of a hood in 625 Muslim archers gave up their positions in order to scavenge war spoils which resulted in defeat strangely enough or luckily enough for our fledgling Islamic community the army of Mecca decided that day to return to their city instead of pressing the offensive and extending their lead it's one of those great what-ifs in history you know had they been more aggressive and attacked would they have been able land a critical blow against Islam but instead of having a decisive encounter the conflict continued this fight as one can see took on a unifying religious aspect for the followers of Mohammed Albert who Sahni again in his book the history of the Arab peoples talks about this quote he was soon drawn into an armed struggle with the quash and again the corniche of the people of Mecca perhaps for a control of the trade routes and in course of the struggle the nature of the community was shaped they came to believe that it was necessary to fight for what was right when quash became insolent towards God and rejected his gracious purpose he gave permission to his apostle to fight and protect himself they acquired the conviction that God and the angels were fighting on their side and accepted calamity when it came as a trial by which God tested believers end quote in 627 the struggle between Medina and Mecca finally came to a head after being unable to take down the upstart Muslims with minor skirmishes the croire decided to raise an army of about 10,000 strong now 10,000 soldiers is about the equivalent of two Roman legions or in our modern era it's about the size of a single division but back then and in the Arabian Peninsula this was a humongous army and then with this army they decided to march directly on Medina the defenders of Medina at this point only numbered about 3000 there were outnumbered almost three to one they desperately began bolstering the defenses of a city because to them this was kind of sort of a last-ditch type of thing they went so far as to dig a trench which would serve to negate the effectiveness of the Meccan cavalry the Battle of the trench as it later became known was fought over a month between January to February of 627 and it was technically a siege it is said that these soldiers of Mecca lacked a cohesive strategy of attack whereas the defenders use their interior lines masterfully to provide a dynamic defense but here's the thing it worked the attackers were unable to overcome the fortifications and every time they would attack the casualties would just pile up the siege was unsuccessful and after a month the Meccans looked back and realized that they had suffered just horrendous losses and when news of this battle got out they lost so much prestige they even lost some of their trade routes as bedouin communities around the area began to flock to muhammad as his victory was interpreted as God's will it is said that they were even people in Mecca that began converting to Islam the war between these two city-states came to a temporary halt in 628 with the signing of the treaty of hudaibiya this treaty aside from establishing a ceasefire also allowed the Muslims to go on pilgrimage to the Kaaba which from that point was known as the Hajj with his southern border now secured Muhammed was able to push north from Medina the beginning of this northern expansion was an interesting time the Muslims began to increase their territory and even pushed as far north as the Jewish oases of Khaybar in mid 628 which is about a hundred and fifty miles from Medina but the bigger picture here was that there was a growing audacity to what Muhammad was doing and I'll give you an example he started to write letters to the heads of state inviting them to convert to Islam and of course by inviting and say that would be proverbial air quotes and this included people like the king of Ethiopia the governor of Bahrain the ruler of Egypt the chief of Yemen and this even included the emperor of the Byzantine Empire there's a copy that exists of what Muhammad wrote to Heraclius quote in the name of God the most merciful the bestow of mercy from Muhammad son of Abdullah to Heraclius the leader of the Romans peace be upon EU follows the guidance furthermore I invite you with the invitation of Islam if you accept Islam you will find peace God will give you your reward and double if you turn away you will bear the sin of the Aryans end quote so I'll be honest I have no idea what that last part means but it doesn't come across as the most inviting statement one can make the Romans didn't take him up on his offer but Muhammad wasn't done he sent an envoy to the ruler of Basra and this envoy wasn't exactly taken very seriously in fact he was executed in the village of muta by one of the local officials and muta by the way is in present-day Jordan to give you an idea of how far Muslim ambassadors were being sent Mohammed responded by sending in about 3,000 troops in order to punish the local tribes but this being Roman held territory the Byzantines or the Romans you know again whichever way you like sent in about ten thousand the ensuing battle of muta was a near disaster for the Arab forces three Muslim commanders fell one by one in the fight and then the army began to really disintegrate and fall apart but at the last moment command was transferred to a man by the name of Khalid ib'n Alwaleed who managed to keep the army from utter destruction Khalid ib'n Alwaleed it was an impressive leader you know arguably one of the most influential in the early conquest and I think it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to say that he was one of the best generals in history and we're going to get back to him in just a bit but in this battle and I personally think that you can make a Quentin Tarantino film out of this it was said that he started fighting and then his sword broke and his friend threw him another sword and he continued to fight and then that one broke and he got another sword and this process was repeated nine times and in the aftermath of this fight even though it was a Muslim defeat and they had to retreat back to Medina he was recognized for his action and was later named Seif lah meaning the sword of Allah the Byzantines or the Romans didn't pursue this again was going to be one of those close calls for Islam but it's not too hard to understand why they wouldn't want to do this it was outside of their territory the environment could easily consume an army that wasn't accustomed to it and the Persians the relentless Persians were still on their doorstep breathing heavily down their necks this worked out really well for Muhammad who would have to turn his attention back to Mecca in 629 the people of Mecca paid and equipped the tribe of banna Bakr to raid an attack a tribe that was allied to the Muslims when Muhammad heard about this he demanded that the meccans pay some sort of blood money or disavow themselves from the raiding tribe or option number three was to declare the treaty of hudaibiya to be null and void and if you recall this treaty ended the fighting after the Battle of the trench the mechons went for the last option but they didn't realize their mistake until it was too late this played right into Muhammad's hand he no longer was constrained from attacking his old enemy without suffering the loss of some sort of diplomatic credibility thus he mobilized the army which at this point wasn't 3000 or 5000 but a whopping 10,000 strong in late 629 he marched his forces on Mecca the Muslim army was divided up into four groups each to attack from a different direction because there were four main approaches to the city On January 11th in the year six thirty three of the divisions entered the city without a fight the fourth under the command of Khalid ib'n Alwaleed which by the way it was said that there wasn't an inch of this guy's body that wasn't covered by some sort of battle scar he entered from the Northeast where the most devoted and resolute defenders were positioned but despite this he did what he was really good at he fought his way in and with that the city surrendered for the most part the people of Mecca were scared out of their minds they thought that Muhammad was going to exact some sort of vengeance or retribution against him but instead the Muslims went directly to the Kaaba the circumambulated around it seven times Muhammad entered and proceeded to collect all the different statues and icons of the various polytheistic religions and then before the people of the city he had them all smashed he proceeded to address the crowd that had assembled not so much with any type of statement of any type of reprisal or wrath but rather one of solidarity and forgiveness and he said quote there is no god but Allah he has no associate he has made good his promise that he held to his bondman and helped him and defeated all the confederates bear in mind that every claim of privilege whether that of blood or property is abolished except that of the custody of the Kaaba and supplying water to the pilgrims people of quanta surely God is abolished from you all of the time of ignorance and all pride in your ancestry because all men are descended from Adam end quote this took the crowd by surprise this was not exactly what they were expecting but he continued quote then Muhammad turning to the people said Oh wash what do you think of the treatment that I should Accord you and they said mercy o prophet of Allah we expect nothing but good from you thereupon Muhammad declared I speak to you in the same words as Youssef spoke to his brothers this day there is no reproof against you go your way for you are free end quote the taking of Mecca by itself was impressive but to take it in this bloodless way was a crowning achievement it created a tremendous amount of prestige for the Islamic cause in the eyes of the Arab people's and when you add this in with the new power base that the Muslims now enjoyed with control of both cities not to mention the surrounding trade routes I mean this was a tremendous advance from humble beginnings in fact later that year Muhammad pushed his advantage by organizing a show of force against the Byzantine Empire he created a military expedition to the city of Tabuk and this time by extreme effort he unified many of the otherwise quarreling tribes into an army of over 30,000 troops however despite all these gains despite having control over Medina and Mecca and a large part of central Arabia the time of the Prophet was coming to a close in the year 632 Muhammad went on his final pilgrimage his last Hajj to the Kaaba while he was there he addressed his people urging them to remain faithful and above all reminded them that they're all equal except when it comes to piety in righteous deeds which was a challenge that all needed to continue to strive to become better it was said that he died in medina on June 8th 632 but his legacy the conquest that he started the unification the Quran the overall message that there is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet persisted Albert Hourani again I think does amazing job in summarizing his life quote it seems plausible to suggest that from an early time those who had known and followed Muhammad would have tried to model their behavior upon his mirrored in the eyes of his followers he appears as a man searching for truth in early life then been mused by the sense of some power falling upon him from on high eager to communicate what had been revealed to him acquiring confidence in his mission and a sense of authority as followers gathered around him an arbitrator concerned to make peace and reconcile disputes in the light of principles of justice believed to be of divine origin a skillful manipulator of political forces a man not turning his back on habitual modes of human action but trying to confine them within the limits of what he believed to have been ordained by the will of God end quote with Muhammad's death things began to really fall apart many of the tribes began to break away and renounce their faith some would rise up in open rebellion there was even a false prophet proclaiming his own faith and divinity in eastern Arabia plus on top of all this there was the beginnings of a divide or schism within the Islamic faith that surrounded who was going to take charge in Arabic the word successor is Khalifa which is where you get Calif and thus caliphate now as I just mentioned a divide was created you have the beginnings of the two major sects of Islam on one side you had the Sunni who were considered the Orthodox and the larger of the two groups and the term by the way is derived from the word Sunnah which is the oral record of guidance and might meant the sayings of Muhammad and his companions this group felt that the successor should be elected by the majority they wanted Muhammad's father-in-law Abu Bakr to assume leadership versus the Shia which is the latter group who felt that Muhammad wanted his son-in-law Ali identity to lead the Sunni were going to win this round Abu Bakkar it seemed made a really good choice he was a senior companion and a close trusted adviser to the Prophet he was involved in amateur 40 of the major battles going as far back as butter but he also was at the hood and at the Battle of the trench to name a few in 632 he was declared the successor by the Muslim elite known as the Ansar he established what was going to be known as the rashidun caliphate he was the first of four rashidun caliph also known as the rightly guided he ruled for a mere two years from 632 to 634 and his first objective was to crush the various rebellions of well the entire Arabian Peninsula and thus bring everybody back into the fold this was going to be known as the war of the Reta now as far as things do this was a pretty big one Abu Bakkar probably realizes right off the bat even commented on his own ascension quote I've been given the authority over you if I do well help me and if I do wrong set me right sincere regard for truth is loyalty and disregard for truth is treachery obey me so long as I obey God in His Messenger but if I disobey you owe me no obedience end quote the Wars of the Reta were a series of conflicts to bring the seceded tribes back under the control of Medina and these started off really poorly the Muslim army moved out of Medina to fulfill the last military orders of Mohammed but when the rebel forces heard that the troops were off they converged to attack the capital and why wouldn't you hitting at the weakest point is a essential aspect of war Abu Bakr realizing what a precarious spot he was in arranged for a last ditch fighting force from the clan of Muhammad known as the banu hashim with considerable effort he was able to defend Medina and then drive the rebels back securing a base of operations but a new strategy was needed Abu Bakr knew in order to win and not leave his home base at risk he had to attack multiple enemies in multiple directions at once Bahrain Oman Yemen etc I mean these were all in out targets he was in luck the Muslim army had evolved to the point where it could be organized for such tasks he created an army with multiple Corps 11 Corps all together and assigned each one a talented commander because much like the Mongols under jenga's Khan were to come down the line this was an army based on meritocracy you know if he could prove yourself you got a promotion and speaking of proving yourself the largest of these Corps which measured about 13,000 strong was placed under none other than Khalid ib'n Alwaleed Khalid began his campaign with his famous words and to me it sounds like he has perhaps a little bit too much testosterone in him quote I am the son of many chiefs my sword is sharp and terrible it is the mightiest of things when the pot of war boils fiercely end quote Khalid managed to March his army east across Arabia and fought rebel armies at a variety of locations those that he didn't fight he was able to subdue or convert to his side by the use of shrewd diplomacy he managed to cross the vast desert as he moved towards the stronghold of the rebel leader known as mu Salima who was his own self-proclaimed prophet of course history is written by the victor in this case and he's referred to by later texts as the false prophet or mu Salima the liar but his forces were considerable and numbered about forty thousand Khalid skillfully brought together several of the Corps and managed to fight him in a place that was later known as the garden of death lovely fighting was fierce but the apostates suffered about 21,000 casualties the Muslims only a mere 1200 with this campaign Khalid managed to secure a vast tract of central Arabia but of course the Reta Wars continued fighting lasted till about 6:30 for all together but one area after the next fell yemen mara bahrain central arabia was first secured then the coastal areas then the southern portions came under the control of medina by mid 633 almost all of the arabian peninsula was united under the kala I mean granted there were still a few mop-up operations here or there but for the most part there were a mild chore waiting to be done thus in late 633 Abubakar decided to expand further and he picked a great time for this the momentum was there as people were united in the eager and so new armies were raised assembled and equipped but this time their destination was north directly into Roman held Syria and for good measure the Persian Empire because hey if you're going to be attacking the local world superpowers you might as well attack both of them right and Khalid ib'n Alwaleed was the man picked for the job I think it's about high time we started talking about this guy in more detail so I'm just going to say it I think that this man from a military perspective was perhaps one of the best field commanders in history I'd easily put him up there with people like Hannibal or Caesar Jackson Napoleon even Rommel sad part at least for me is that I only learned about him in the last few months and I would say at this point that if you're into military history do not skip out on them Khalid was a companion to Muhammad he also served under the later rashidun caliph as well he was to the nascent Islamic state what Patton was to the United States or Zhukov was to the USSR in the Second World War this was a man that was bred for war he loved it he had this pret and natural instinct for it he could survey the land to find his site that was ideal for his forces and he knew how to employ the strength of his men to achieve just spectacular victories this was the type of insight by the way that only the best commanders in history possessed in the early Islamic conquest he was pretty much everywhere you know at the Battle of mutasa I previously mentioned he fought and had nine swords broken underneath him and then he won the title sigh Eve Lulla meaning the sword of Allah actually the full title was Salah al mas Lulu which means the drawn sword of God he was at the Battle of the trench she helped secure Mecca during the Reta Wars he helped in the conquest of Arabia and said that he was victorious in over a hundred battles in 633 he was given the simple task of well invading the Persian Empire because you know it was the thing to do Alexander the Great did it the Romans did it in fact they were still attempting to do this colleague organized an attack on lower Mesopotamia he came in through what is now Kuwait and then advanced along the Euphrates River hitting every Persian fortification and army along the way in fact he even sent the Persian High Command a note and we had a copy of it it goes something like this quote submit to Islam and be safe or agree to the payment of the jizya in the jizya by the way is a religious tax and you and your people will be under our protection else you will have only yourself to blame for the consequences for I bring the men who desire death as ardently as you desire life end quote he managed to successfully invade Persian held territory and then won a quick succession of victories at the battles of kasi mountain and the Battle of the chains lawless and the Battle of waha now of the different battles that I had just mentioned the Battle of wolodja was particularly fascinating and to anyone like myself who was a big fan of Hannibal in the Battle of cannae well this one is going to be one to remember the Battle of wallah Jaya which took place on May and 633 was an encounter where collied had only 15,000 troops that's 1/5 going up against a Persian force of 50,000 troops that's 5 0 under the command of a Persian general by the name of Anders a car the Persian general decided to go in for a direct frontal attack because you know that's what the uninspired do that in the fact that he figured that colleagues front line being fairly weak we just basically give up and run away collied instead had his troops slowly give up a little bit of ground at a time the middle of his line more so than the sides and so he created this kind of in verse you drawing the Persians deeper and deeper into this pocket and as this was happening he had his cavalry come in on both Persian flanks and then at the last second khalid had hidden cavalry units come over a hill and complete the entire encirclement and so you had a situation where a smaller army was able to completely encircle a bigger army and then annihilate it here's the other interesting aspect of this wallaga wasn't even his masterpiece achievement furthermore this battle didn't end colleagues winning streak in fact he pushed the Persians back again and again until he arrived at the city of Faraz in December of 633 Feroz was a considerable distance upstream on the Euphrates it was a border city between the Persian and the Byzantine empires and the Persians were so desperate at this point that they made an alliance with of all people their old enemies the Romans they even brought in Christian Arabs to bolster their numbers but even this wasn't enough collied using the afraid ease to trap their army used a pincer movement and demolish them yet again the man was just unstoppable Feroz was going to be colleagues last engagement with the Persians this is not to say that fighting on this front was over in fact the Persians would later counter-attack and retake some of their territory lower Mesopotamia was after all one of the more prosperous and thus lucrative areas Khalid secretly left the front lines went on pilgrimage to Mecca to fulfill his vow to Mohammed but unbeknownst to him a new front had opened up Abu Bakkar had sent into Roman help Syria for Corps from the city of Tabuk these forces went into the southern portion of the Levant and then they began moving north up towards Jerusalem but this contingent was stopped when the Byzantines sent in garrison forces the Byzantines like their Roman ancestors were keen on the idea of lines of fortifications you know the string of Defense's that they once had on the Rhine the Danube during the heyday of the Roman Empire the tactic worked because these key strategic locations were able to block the Muslim army from moving any further north they began to request further reinforcements as they were now stuck Khalid ib'n Alwaleed had returned back to Faraz at this point and being the go-to man he was asked to come and help but he was all the way up in Mesopotamia and so in order to do this he would either have to retreat back down south into Arabia and then come back up north to the Levant to help his comrades which in the grand scheme of things may not have been that useful because they still might not have been able to surmount the Roman defensive lines or he could also help and this by far was the more insane option he could also cross one of the most treacherous terrains known to humankind the Syrian desert with a full army nonetheless but this had advantages as his path would bypass a lot of enemy strongpoints and fortifications and would allow the Arabian army to come in on the enemy's rear areas so crossing the near uncrossable desert into hostile territory with an army of thousands little chance of resupply and we have to do this quickly how does one do this this was going to be one of those time periods in history where a concept or a plan is regarded as impossible or just downright crazy but how many times in history have we heard this before it was after all insane for Hannibal to cross the Alps with an army along with his elephants it was nuts for Patton to take the Third Army and March at a hundred miles in winter with no rest and then attack the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge and what was Sherman thinking when he advanced from Atlanta to Savannah without any form of resupply or communication and of course it was impossible but unquote for the tanks of the Vermont to go through the Ardennes you know it's all crazy until it happens and then you have chapters if not books written about it collied solution was Niq it's something that blows my mind it's an answer that comes from someone who has lived their life in the harshness of the Arabian desert and is aware of options that wouldn't readily come to anybody else and try to imagine any other army coming up with an answer that is even close to this so collied had his men starve the camels for three days no food no water and then on the third day he had his men bring all the animals to the Euphrates River where he allowed them to drink their fill and the camels at this point who were dehydrated began to drink and drink and drink and they drink themselves to overflowing status and when this was done the army began to march across the desert now a couple of days into this they began to run out of water and the human body can go several days without food but without water you're going to die pretty quickly especially if you're in the middle of the desert there's no other form of water supply and the Sun is bearing down on you at which point his men turned around and began slaughtering the camels and then extracting the water out of their stomachs or wherever else in a camel that water is stored I'm not that good with camel physiology maybe somebody in the audience can kind of enlighten me a little bit more on this but the tactic worked the Arabian army appeared as if from nowhere in the northern Levant behind the Byzantine line of fortifications and Khalid came in fighting after winning several smaller battles he managed to beat back the Byzantine forces at a place called as Nadine on July 30th and 634 and by doing this he shattered the Byzantine hold on Palestine the Byzantine Empire was forced to retreat first to Damascus and then again to Antioch leaving the Muslims to raid the rest of the Levant at their will but Khalid pressed the offensive he gathered together all the various different Corps laid siege to the city of Damascus and destroyed the Roman reinforcements that were assigned to the city with direct assault he managed to capture Damascus on September 18th 634 eventually the whole of north in Syria was taken now it just so happened that in late 6:34 the venerable abu bakkar died and was succeeded by the second raja - and caliph umar IBN al-khattab umar didn't really have a sweet spot for khalid he was kind of a rival he was fearful of colleagues popularity and despite the man's track record umar had him demoted from field commander essentially of all land forces to this kind of back seat advisor role this was going to prove to be a bad idea because the emperor of the byzantine empire Heraclius wasn't going to take the loss of the Levant lying-down Heraclius was an interesting man he's remembered as the Emperor who made Greek the official language and recovered the true cross from the Persians but he was also the unfortunate soul who had to contend with the early Islamic conquest you know as if fighting the Persians wasn't enough he started building a massive Roman army sources are not consistent with what size it was the low end estimate is about fifty thousand the upper end is about two hundred thousand but more likely it was probably somewhere in the middle but sources do agree on one thing and that's that this force dwarfed the Muslim army which consisted of about 22 about forty thousand men the Roman plan was to advance quickly beginning in May of 636 and take on the Arab forces which at this point had been broken up into their smaller Corps and were scattered about attacking various targets it was Khalid that's all the danger of what this juggernaut army represented and he sent an appeal to all forces to unite at once now despite the fact that he was no longer in charge the various Corps complied and at the last second he was given command of the now unified force as I had mentioned they were outnumbered but colleagues plan attested to his masterful grasp of his men's capabilities he organized the infantry into a single frontline and then he assembled his best and most elite cavalry into an almost separate but versatile and mobile command the two forces met on what is now the borders of Syria and Jordan east of the Sea of Galilee near a river named Yarmouk the battlefield was a giant plane but it was divided by two deep ravines that were cut from two fast flowing rivers that eventually came together at one end to form this giant V there were a number of bridges over the ravines that allowed for movement and it was into the mouth of this V that the Byzantines positioned their forces you know the idea was I guess that if you have steep ravines with quick flowing waters and jagged sharp rocks at the bottom and this on both flanks and also to the rear well it would prevent an attack from those directions but think about this tactically because at the same time this position also bottles you in and thus to some extent limits what you can do offensively the Battle of Yarmouk was arguably one of the most decisive events in world history it was a six-day battle which lasted between August 15th through the 20th and the Year 636 the first four days collied knowing that he was outnumbered he adopted a defensive posture day one was essentially a skirmish but day two the Byzantines attacked on both flanks and came close to crushing the Arabs but Khalid used his cavalry his mobile elite force to go back and forth across the field and he did this masterfully his tactical skill compensating for his lack of number wherever there was a hole he would plug it wherever he had a sagging of line his horsemen would fortify it and wherever the enemy exposed a unwitting flank he would attack it however at the end of the day the Muslims lost ground interestingly enough some of the infantry who wanted to flee that day were sent back into battle by their wives who when they came back to camp they were berated their cowardice day three was another devastating flanking attack but day four was even worse this was known as the day of lost eyes as the Byzantine archers launched one series of devastating volleys after the other but despite her numerical superiority the Romans failed to achieve a breakthrough and as a result their morale plummeted day five was a rest day as compared to everything else collied sensed the roman fatigue and their loss of morale he organized his cavalry into one massive Corps and then secretly in the night he sent troops to block or destroy all the bridges that would allow the Byzantine army to retreat on the morning of day six Khalid went from the defensive to the offensive he sent in his infantry to pin down the enemy forces and then when they were distracted he amassed his cavalry and threw them into the Roman left flank he created a break in the enemy line that opened up into a flood and after routing the enemy cavalry who had misjudged him for only being a defensive man he hit the infantry from the rear this caused them to retreat then break and then go into full rout desperate men now made a run for their lives to escape but when they came to the edge of the ravines what they found were either broken bridges or even worse Arab horsemen holding all the opposite bridge heads waiting for them all the escape routes were blocked those that were not slaughtered took their chances crossing the ravines on foot which perhaps was an even quicker death losses were estimated from the low end of 50,000 to the upper end of a hundred and twenty thousand the Byzantine force after this was just gone Heraclius decided to abandon Syria after this he said quote farewell a long farewell to Syria my fair province thou art an infidels now peace be with you o Syria what a beautiful land you will for the enemy end quote but had his forces won and had they we take in Syrian then perhaps moved on to destroy Medina where would that have left Islam instead the Byzantine army was demolished in the Arab conquest continued and then began to accelerate now what happened to our illustrious commander the Battle of Yarmouk was Khalid ib'n Alwaleed masterpiece but a few years later in 638 it was dismissed of all command and on his deathbed in 642 he was upset upset that he hadn't died in battle and he was remembered as saying quote I've fought in so many battles seeking martyrdom that there is no spot in my body left without a scar or a wound made by a spear or sword and yet here I am dying on my bed like an old camel may the eyes of the cowards never rest end quote the Arab expansion really began to accelerate at this point Jerusalem was taken in April of 637 Antioch Aleppo felt later that year and keep in mind that these cities would stay in Muslim control until the Latin Knights of the First Crusade liberated them but that wouldn't happen for over 450 years the forces of the Calif would then proceed to invade Anatolia Armenia and in 638 they captured upper Mesopotamia which would later be known as al-jazeera eventually a buffer zone or neutral zone depending on whether or not you're a Star Trek fan was created with the Byzantine Empire which consisted of the Taurus Mountains however conflict would arise on this front again Anatolia would be invaded Constantinople would itself be under attack in 656 and what about the Persians the Persians didn't really do much better they did manage to launch a counter-offensive in 634 and defeated a Muslim army at the the bridge however after Yarmouk the calif was able to redeploy forces to the persian front they quickly retook lower Mesopotamia and then in 637 advanced and took the Persian capital widths estefan the Persians would continue to fight but eventually more forces were sent across the Zagros Mountains the last major Persian army was destroyed in 641 and by 643 the Persian Empire no longer existed the ration Caliphate now extended all the way to the Indus River Valley so with the Persian Empire destroyed and the Byzantine beaten back into submission basically fully on the defensive the Islamic conquest would now turn in a new direction that direction was now west the lands of Africa now awaited them well that ends a 1 in our next episode we will continue in the immortal words of Jim Morrison when he said the West is the best thus we continue our narrative as the Arab conquest continues into Egypt across North Africa known as the Maghreb and eventually into Spain where a depleted Visigothic Kingdom is just right for the takeover so join us in the next episode titled al-andalus folks if you've enjoyed this podcast know that it does take a considerable amount of effort time and not to mention concentration to create please take a little of your time to rate and review especially on iTunes or spread word about the podcast flashpoint history can also be followed on facebook twitter and yes there will be a video accompaniment on youtube finally the bandwidth on this series has expanded to the point where it is requiring a considerable amount of upkeep if you feel this episode is worth a dollar consider contributing to the show on patreon the link for which will be in the description of the podcast below and all funds get put rectly back into the show again thank you for your time and for listening you [Music]

Channel: Flash Point History

Views: 252,836

Rating: 4.8032136 out of 5

Keywords: flash, point, history, early, islamic, conquest, muhammed, arabia, mecca, medina, battle, badr, uhud, walaja, Yarmouk, Khalid, ibn, walid, abu, bakr, Damascus, persian, Byzantine, Empire, hajj, Hijra, war of reconquest spain

Id: LdqFW8RWfQk

Length: 62min 42sec (3762 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 03 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/justscottaustin]

Fuck that! The video is LXII:XLI.

Ain't nobody got time for that!

[u/vajranen]

Then the mongols arrived and humbled them.

[u/HappyFunCommander]

The whole idea of the "dark ages" has been debunked.

[u/911roofer]

The Dark Ages was a lie the Renaissance cooked up for themselves and is mostly rejected by modern scholars. For example, belief in witchcraft was declared heretical by the Medieval Catholic church, while witch burnings were a constant in the Renaissance

[u/KripBanzai]

In America, it is commonly easier to just think of the Middle and Near East as backwards and in-fighting nations because we tend to get very shortsighted about history and focus on recent history. Western culture is full of that. BUT I'm sure it would be true, vice versa, if the roles were reversed. That's how humans like to roll.

[u/Thisshitsuckssobad11]

Im glad that they were "enlightened" so many years ago. Hows that working out now? Are stonings enlightened?

[u/kriskrush]

See in history class they taught us these people were doing these things, here’s there timeline.. these other people were doing these other things so here’s there other timeline

I like it when it’s all put into perspective like these people were doing this while these other people were doing this, here’s one timeline of everyone

[u/redcapmilk]

If it's too hot, there isn't a lot of water, and your culture peaked 1000 years ago, you get real ornery.

[u/JorgeXMcKie]

Makes me think of us still using imperial measurements when the majority of the world uses metric.