Talk:Muslim conquests

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[edit] Islamic conquest of South-east Asia

Today hardly anyone knows (or even believes upon being told) that the world's most populous Muslim nation is ... surprise surprise, Indonesia. Not Saudi Arabia or Iran or Pakistan. And Malaysia isn't far behind either. However, there is almost ZERO mention of the Islamic conquest of South-east Asia on Wikipedia. Can somebody well-versed with the history of this topic (Islamization of South-east Asia) please write some relevant articles (and extend existing ones such as this)? Thank you.

[edit] Why did the Islamic Conquests occur?

So Muslims could spread their faith, loot, plunder, and kill infidels, which is precisely what they did.
What a brave fellow you are, with an anonymous post like that. From what I understand, the conquests were your typical case of nomadic peoples riding into urban centers and taking them over, much like the Huns and the Mongols. In Islamic history, I believe it is commonly accepted that the conquests were seen as a continuation of Muhammad's goals (which included an invasion of Syria), as well as a way to keep the peace in Arabia by focusing on external enemies. Palm_Dogg 13:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
They started off over inclusion of other Arab client states into the Islamic fold, namely the Byzantine Ghassanids and the Sassanid Yemen and the Kingdom of Al-Hirah, by then battle was joined with the empires and success just pressed on to capture and settle in the more fertile Arabian crescent, more so when the Umayyad dynasty came to power. Notice that the entire Conquests region was part of the Byzantine empire or the Sassanid domains of influence. Umar was actually against extending the boundaries further into the Iranian plateau. Also the lower taxes and accomodations accorded to the subject people of the imperial elite helped make the consolidation rapid. Abu Bakr reconsolidated Arabia proper Umar created a buffer zone all around Arabia and brought in the Arabs of the Levant and lower Mesopotamia and defeated the Persians. Under Uthman it froze and became an offensive defence of captured lands, the Arabs did not want to have a state filled with non-Arabs actors however they also needed finances to keep their territories and administer the land so they raided wide pacifying but not conquering until the Umayyads came in after the civil wars under Ali. From then onwards it became a typical empire with a heriditary dynasty and expanding to find revenue to administer the realm and commands for rising administrators and an emphasis on Arab power. Here is a useful link from The University of Calgary, Applied History Group.--213.42.21.75 23:16, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
Use whatever excuse you want, the fact is the followers of the "religion of peace" and those who continually profess that Muslims only fight in self-defense continually invaded, conquered, looted, plundered, and massacred non-Muslims. There is no need to sugarcoat it, as it is all fact. The reason Islam exists on the global scale as it does is due to these invaders and warlords. No amount of sugarcoating history will legitimize the bitterness that people such as Hindus, Buddhists, and Zoroastrians feel towards these Islamic invasions and the horrendous effects they had on the local populations.
You can believe whatever fairytales you want, just don't bother posting them here.
"Dieu le veut!" comes to mind. Religion has traditionally been a bloody business, no matter which face it wears.
I think what the original contributor was asking was why did the conquests succeed, not what motivated them. Calbaer 21:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
Iran and Byzantine, exhausted by internal strife and mutual conflict as well as reliance on local Arab clients who switched sides. There was no reason they should have lost if they could have mobilized, they had superior numbers, equipment and resources, then they just shattered under the loss of momentum vs the gain in momentum, resources and capabilities on the other side.

Its a common thing for any superior nation to try & conquer others, whether it was purely for materialistic goals (similar to what the USA is doing today) or other intentions. So i don't think Muslims need to sugarcoat their conquests & justify their wars while the western world dignifies Richard the lion heart, Napeleon, Churchill & other politicians & generals who spent their entire life invading & occupying other countries. Don't forget that lots of western scholars agree that the Islamic conquests where amongst the most merciful & tolerant of all during history, & that the nations (persians, byzantine)that arab muslims fought & conquered where already occupying the lands of these arabs.

Sorry, none of what I stated about Muslims is a fairytale. They were bloodthirsty , iconoclastic, materialistic conquerors.

They were not a "superior nation". They were just better at killing people (and still are). The Hindus and Persians were far more advanced philosophically and intellectually then the Muslims or Arabs were. The Muslims continually profess that they only fight in self defense and that attacking innoccents is against their faith. Yet the Chachnama details about half-a-dozen invasions done by Muslim Arabs that were related to religious zeal. Only with Qusam did they suceed, and he conquered a large chunk of northern India when his initial response was only to some tyrant in Sindh. Keep in mind that these were the first Muslims. Some of them either knew Mohhamed personally, had met him, or were taught Islam by one of Mohhameds early followers.

As far as Muslims being tolerant, that does not apply in South Asia or Iran. Maybe in the Ottoman Empire, and in regards to Jews or Christians, but Hindus arent Jews/Christians, and Zoroastrians arent Jews/Christians. From the perspective of one of the "oppressed" (say a Hindu) their is no way you can legitimize the foreign occupation of middle-eastern Muslims in a country like India. Its akin to trying to legitimize the Israeli occupation of Palestine to a Muslim. The concept that Muslims were sporadically tolerant in comparison to European Christians (who historically were monsters) doesnt mean squat.

Haha someone is sore coz his racial ancestors did not carry a big enough BOOMSTICK to thump the opposition. If you are at the bottom of the food chain expect to eat dirt. Maybe if the Brahmins weren't too busy squeezing the balls off the Buddhists or obsessing over avoiding the shadows of the Shudra and Dalits for fear of being polluted they could have come up with something to maintain their superiority. Even the Persians were too busy fighting their own religious conflicts and setting up class heirarchies based on the all conquering Aryan lineage over those inferior non-Aryans. Historically no one expected "compassion" and "oppression" was a way life yesterday just as it is today, if you got conquered or bullied by political military might you were inferior and found yourself relegated to the bottom of the social trash heaps. Muslims were the odd man out back in the day for even entertaining such strange notions as rights, then again why not milk a cash cow, 60 years in 10% of the land population is Muslim, the Arabs are the top of the class hiercharcal pile and governors are complaining about declining tax bases and social climbing conquered plebians all because the Caliph made conversions easier! P.S Qasim only captured Sindh, but yes he did come for empire, it was not the Middle Eastern Arabs who overran India it was the Iranian, Turks, and the later Mongol dynasties based around Afghanistan, does it make it better that they as local as the Magadha Mauryas? Same as their other dirty mlechha predecessors the Khambojas, the Hunas and the Kushana before them, or does their mention in the Puarana's make them more acceptable than the other conquerors. Stop projecting your presentist and modern nationalistic bullshit onto history. There are no glories in the past just lessons to learn to improve the future, once having an empire and vast territories was the only way to keep "your people" (definition of the day was tribe, clan caster whatever) flush with wealth and trade, war was good buisness today you need them to buy your goods and thats good buisness. Same deal when the Mongols overran the Muslim lands, or when the colonials overran the world, you lose and you eat dirt. If you are "culturally superior" you absorb your conqueror not get absorbed. Lesson one, your political power base's well being is your primary concern, who cares if some subsidy is killing off some shit ass 3rd worlder, it's more important for you that your man can make the payment on that third family car. Lesson two, the best defense is offense. Lesson three, sanctimonious preaching and indignant rigtheousness are usually just political fronts.
One, If you are going to bring up some BS about Brahmins and the caste system then atleast be factual. The fact stands that the Brahmin hierarchical system wasnt neirly as oppressive or perverted as the Muslim class system that is essentially based on religios belief. Timur himself massacred 100,000 Hindus. Nadir Shah another 17,000. Mohhamed of Ghor/Ghazni another few thousand. The Khiljis were another group. THe lodhis. The Durranis . THe Delhi Sultanate. Aurangzeb. It goes on and on. Reference one incident that has any legitimate proof of some massive Brahmin slaughter of Buddhists or Dalits.
Compare 1000+ years of Muslim oppression to the so-called oppressive caste system that has existed for over 2000+ years and it is no contest. All of the evidence points towards the fact that the natives of India were overwhelmingly better off under Hindu rule then under the rule of some middle eastern ape. Muslims did not believe in human rights but rights specifically for Muslims.
Two, if you are going to bring up some crap about the Aryans then atleast use legitimate history. The Aryan invasion and Aryan conquest are complete crap theories that are the product of a British Christian mentality. There was no AIT. There was possibly an AMT but the recent genetic evidence points towards an out of India theory.
Three, the term mlechha wasnt used by all Hindus or Indians throughout Indian history. It isnt emphasized in any Hindu sect, is mostly found in the Puranas, and the Puranas themselves are rejected by many groups including the Arya Samaj. On the flipside, the term kaffir is central to Islamic doctrine and is exactly how the author of the Quran routinely reffered to non-Muslims.
From the standpoint of a modern Hindu, the Mauryas and Khambojas were legitimate rulers and the Muslim apes were not. This is not a nationalist standpoint. I am not a nationalist. The age of invasion is not over. You assume that because one or two Brahmins invented some Purana that every single Hindu believed this and believes this still.
As far as the rest of your rant, its all irrelevant. Modern India could turn the middle-east into a smoldering crater. We have nothing to fear from Muslim countries or their primitive faith. We could easily defend ourselves if any of these Muslim countries tried what they did in the past. So youre entire rant is not reflective of the current situation of India. ZWe were enslaved and oppressed by Muslims and then the British, and despite all of THAT, we developed nuclear tech within 30 years of SELF RULE and are slowly ridding the country of its problems.
One: You are generally stating casualties that relate to military campaigns not pogroms like the gas chambers. Do quick historical war history check, the history of POWs is recent, the traditional sentence was death or slavery to the captured soldiers unless you were an aristocrat likely to be ransomed. Pusymaitra is one who is documented, in general the recorded historical narrative of "India" only began with the arrivals of the Muslims, prior to that literacy was relegated to a certain caste who did not seem to kept notes.
Two: Do a check on why Iran is called Iran, and you will understand that the Aryans referred to are not those in India in this instance.
Three: All kaffir means non-believer. I think the point is there is always a label for the one not like us, i.e. Mlechha, Nastik, pagan etc. it's all the same thing.
Four: The modern hindu is not the same as the historical hindu. The Khambojas were themselves called mlecchas by the maghada and satavahanas. Heck, even the label of "hindu" is inexact and has been argued as colonial label of an amophous grouping of "dharmic faiths" and defined by the British to create a striking division between the ruling Muslims and their non-muslim subjects. Also, it was not the middle easterns that overran "India" by conquest. It was central asians, turks, mongols etc. Just like the khambojas, kushanas and myriad other central asian people before them.
The Age of Invasion, maybe but the Age of Conquest: Yes, it is over because the morality of war has changed. So until that changes back it is impossible to rule over a subject people and build a territorial empire now due to entire concept of POWs and the conduct of campaigns. A resisting population undoes all the benefits of conquest and turns it into a economic liability. It requires naked force to subdue them.
Nukes: You are just being infantile and blinkered. Only 20% of of Muslims are Arabs and only 25% of those 20% are middle eastern. The most populous muslim nation is your non-middle eastern neighbor and you forgetting that the nuke option is MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) Hopefully the third world can grow out of it's my penis is bigger contests and actually go out and find a lay.

The bottom line is that this article is about the Muslim conquests that were conducted by the early Muslims, thus showing how the Islamic faith is a complete logical and philosophical blunder that was the product of bacwards Arab culture. Muslims do not fight in self defense soley. They never have (this entire article proves it) and they probably never will. The Muslim conquests themselves are viewed from the standpoint of a Hindu as a Jew views the holocaust.

No they do not. Like all human societies there is a mixed bag and ideals are usually left in the books.

What idiot will try to legitimize the holocause to a Jew. WHite nationalists? Turks? Muslims? No sane person would. Apply the same mindset that the Jew takes towards the Nazi reign and you have the same POV for a Hindu.

Or did the Jews deserve it?


Human society is a work of mother nature, and she is indeed one piece of work. That said things change, no society is immune to evolution. Even the Amish! Life was more brutal and harsh, be happy it's cosier now or you forgotten your parent back in the day stories, work to being able to say same to your kids tomorrow and it will all magically work out and maybe then can look back to our time in a few centuries and remark at how beastly we were to each other.

  • A historian must write the history the way it happened not the way it should have happened or the way he/she liked it had happened. The title of the article is “Muslim Conquests” not “Arab Conquests”, when Iranians and other nations became Muslims they themselves became driving forces of Muslim conquests. Arabs did not have enough men to conquer all the territories ruled by what is rightly or wrongly known as Arab Empire (As opposed to Islamic Empire). 82.70.40.190

I would like to note that the Muslims did not kill people who refused to convert. As long as they payed a small tax, non-Muslims could become influential figures in Muslim society.

[edit] tag

I've added the following:

The examples and perspective in this article or section may not represent a worldwide view.
Please improve the article or discuss the issue on the talk page.

I added it because the article is very European and Arab based. It ignores completely the Muslim battles which spread Islam into Central Asia and China. It also seems to imply that the conquests ended in the 8th century. But the ottomans spread Islam to the Balkans much later via battles. --Irishpunktom\talk 15:38, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't limit its scope in geography; that limits its scope in time. This is intentional; the article is about the initial Muslim conquests. If you want other Muslim conquests, perhaps a disambiguation page and/or a title change is in order. But adding conquests of later centuries (by Ottomans, for example) would make the article worse in my opinion. After all, the Fall of Constantinople is closer in history to the present day than it is to the fall of the Umayyad caliph. As far as other parts of Asia go, there's some in the article, and I added a bit more based on other Wikipedia articles. I don't think any Chinese battles could be called "conquests." So I think it's safe to remove the tag, unless you have an argument as to why it should stay. Calbaer 21:29, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Simply people who wrote this had an agenda I do not see Chinese military conquests, British military conquests tags on the same page. How many of these conflicts were for religous reasons. Alot were done for economical gains. I am not trying to whitewash history but there is more then one reason for war, I just believe people have an agenda to play here.

[edit] The "Prophet" Muhammad??

I don't think there is any proof that anyone has ever had pre-cogitive abilities. I am there for removing this...

It is a title like king or pope, or even a profession and contemporary acceptance or a predominant view to the same is acceptable as religious role. By your definition there are no such things, however that is censoring history because there were "prophets" and references can be find all over attesting to this. If you prefer it can be further charecterized as Jewish prophet or Islamic prophet to specify of which group much as you would tag a country name after a king I suppose.--213.42.21.75 23:23, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Focus

This article seems to be a bit confused about what it's doing. If I understand correctly it really should be a military history article, so the extensive sidebar providing a theological description of Islam seems inappropriate. The quotation at the start might go well in the article on the Umayyad Caliphate, but doesn't fit here. The article on Byzantine-Arab wars should probably extend past 750AD but this article can still point to it as the source for detailed information on the conquests. My intention is to write the Byzantine-Arab wars article and come back here some day perhaps. Input solicited. DavidBofinger 03:24, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Can use the help to redefine the focus and hone the Byzantine-Arab section, it was a lot more confused and all over the place earlier. Basically i restructured it to capture the umayyad period and the rashidun timeframe when the muslims were a singular political entity, and serve as a portal, as per the Early Muslim Expansions template. Then just did a summary to transition to to the Abassids and the fracturing of the singular entity to the present as a legacy of the early expansions, trying to mention some of the important later political entities. The entire military history of muslim lands was in shambles and I was trying to sort out into some sort of order really and this was the first stop!--Tigeroo 16:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
On second thoughts we have most of the pieces already: e.g., conquest of North Africa, conquest of Egypt. What we need is some holes filled in (conquest of Syria-Palestine in more detail; conquest of Armenia; others?) and then maybe we can scratch the Byzantine-Arab wars article. 203.23.157.89 10:11, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Byzantine arab wars

I added the wars of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but I think it should be moved to the main article "Byzantine arab wars".

[edit] Contamination

Theres a huge amount of angry comments here. Please, keep it academic.

[edit] TITLE

Note the titel of the Article is MUSLIM CONQUESTS, NOT INITIAL CONQUESTS. It is therefore important to include all of the wars that they saw as holy, although that may be quite a few...


None of these wars were seen holy. They were conquest wars, like those of many other peoples. They were not religious war in the sense of fighting against other religions, and also the term jihad, not used at the time of the early conquests, does not mean "holy war", even in its figurative meaning. --Arabist 12:11, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

It means struggle for the faith. Of course they were holy wars, they were attempts to spread the word of the Islamic prophet.Tourskin 05:46, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not neutral

"and recaptured the Muslim lands " Anatolia was not a Musliam land, whatever the hell that means anyways. It was a Byzantine territory briefly occupied by the Arabs. Lands do not belong to a religion but a political faction - people, keep this article free from ny religious bias. Tourskin 05:48, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

1000 years prior to this engagement Anatolia was ceded by the Greeks to Persia. Of course the Greeks never honored the treaty as evidenced by their later wars of aggression against middle eastern peoples. While Persians aren't the same as Arabs or Muslims many Westerners can't tell the difference so I really don't see what the problem is. It's picking nits. The Romans certainly had no claim to the region as they were an occupying force that conquered pre-existing sovereign states. The Greeks ceded the area to Persia 500 BC which clearly makes it a territory of the indigenous peoples of the region.

This above statement has absolutely nothing do with what I just said. Anatolia was never a Muslim land to begin with so how could it be recaptured? What is the point? The idea that the Greeks ceded Anatolia to the Persians is absolute nonesense - the Persian Empire subjugated the local Greek cities such Pergamum (wrongly spelling but who cares) and the Greeks remained there, right until the Greek Empires of Seleucia emerged in the region following Alexander's death. Of course to say that only the Greeks broke treaties is nonesense and the above for all I know is a random person's statement. The Greeks Never ceded the territory. In Antiquity there was no such territorial loss by the Greeks to the persians, only loss of independence. Persian conquests thousands of years ago are not Muslim conquests - please don't make me laugh. The Persians thousands of years ago and the Arabs of the 6th century are completely different - don't insult westerners by saying that we can't tell the difference because we damn well can.

Further moore, I never said the land belonged to the Romans or Greeks, I said it belongs to a Political faction.

Finally, have the courtesy of signing your name, so I know who you are.Tourskin 01:02, 20 July 2007 (UTC)


The indigenous people of Anatolia are not Turks, who came from Central Asia, or the Persians, who never annexed the land but brought it in as part of the Empire as a vassal state. The indigenous people are some Celts who settled in Galatia, Greeks and to the east possibly Armenians as well.Tourskin 01:04, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Get it right people - Reasons are different from Casus Belli

The Casusbelli for all these wars was for Allah. The Reasons may have been economic or political or whatever.Tourskin 17:52, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History Section out of order

I noticed the history section starts with the Byzantine-Arab wars (634), then regresses with the Perso-Arab wars (633), the year before. Was it intended to be out of sequence, or is it ok for me to put them in the correct order?

Also, I believe the Persio-Arab wars began a few years earlier than 633, because the Arabs took Yemen (Himyar) from the Persians in 630, according to the History of Yemen, Sassanid period section. I'd like to make those corrections sometime during the next week, unless anyone else has edits already planned. Thomas Lessman (talk) 10:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)