Why were the early Islamic armies so good?

Factual Questions
1

Or were they? Y’all will have to forgive me if I ask stupid questions. This is a part of history that I’m not good at. I’ve only recently been sniffing at it in any kind of detail.

The early Islamic armies defeated Byzantine and Sassanid armies very impressively, but the impression I get is that how and why is at best unclear and at worst something of a mystery. This bugs me. I can tell you why the Macedonian phalanx was good. I can tell you why the Roman legions were good. Same thing for horse archers, mounted knights, guns, tanks, whatever. But I can’t seem to find a great explanation anywhere for what the Arabs had going on. This is especially annoying since they seem to come so much right the heck out of nowhere, jumping suddenly from not being on anyone’s radar to overrunning empires.

Was it simply a matter of exploiting weakness? The Byzantines and Sassanids had fought each other to exhaustion not long before this, most notably in the War of 602–628. The Sassanids, especially, seem to have been in a state of internal semi-collapse at this point. I’m not super happy with this as an explanation, though. It’s not like the Arabs walked in unopposed. There was a lot of fighting, and the Arabs came out on top. Also, there were other players on the board. For instance, the Western Turkic Khaganate had fought with the Byzantines against the Sassanids in the aforementioned War 602–628. Why were the Arabs the ones to take advantage, and not someone else?

Maybe the Arabs had God on their side. I would feel better about an explanation in terms of strategy, tactics, equipment or manpower, though.

2

Coming under “exploiting weaknesses” has to be added that the early armies recruited heavily from non-Muslim populations who were disaffected with their current rulers (or outright persecuted, like the Oriental Orthodox groupings in Egypt and Syria) and were promised free* worship under the Caliphate. So you had whole units of auxilliaries, and Imperial troops also switched sides.

  • in the sense of religious freedom, of course they still had to pay the jizyah taxes.
3

Western writers are not good at writing about non-Western militaries.

A good book would be Sword of Allah by AI Akram. Although it focuses on Khalid Bin Walid, it does include a major discussion of tactics, strategy, and logistics of that era.

Akramhimself was a career Army officer (a World War Vet, and retired a Lt Gen)

4

I think it is important to highlight what Dibble has.

The western view of the Islamic conquest is generally touched by seeing it through the lens of how the Western christians themselves operated (the eradicationist convert or die mode, as the case of the wiping out of the eastern germanics pagans and others eastern pagans in the europe).

Since the prophet had already given the ideological framework for signing of the alliances and making the deals with such groups, it provided a ready made framework to easily adopt allies - either as the convert or as the treaty alliance.

And as the strategy, the jizyah is generally held to have been a cheaper tax than the collective taxation of the byzantines. For the age, a ‘not us’ group tax was not seen as strange and it was set at a level more reasonable - it was a ‘good deal.’

The proposition to those who were not of the preferred orthodoxy of the Byzantine church was a very good one and this of course encouraged defections.

5

adds AK84’s recommendation to her “to read” list

While it certainly does not apply to the Sassanids and Byzantines, the situation in Hispania and through a lot of the North of Africa was that there were a few guys who claimed to be in charge and a population who didn’t really care much so long as the current Guy In Charge wasn’t too beastly.

Chindasvinto is dead, long live Recesvinto! “OK, whatever.” Rodrigo is dead, long live… uh… Tariq, yes? Am I saying it right? Long live Tariq! “OK, whatever.” The Goth kings in our case, other Germanic tribes in others, had been busily murdering each other over who got the throne while the general population did their best to reach tomorrow. Rodrigo himself was betrayed by several of his own lords at Guadalete, which after all had been the way they’d been doing things since they came, saw, and decided it wasn’t a bad place to stay. For a lot of the population in those areas, there wasn’t much of a reason to oppose the new boss. And for the guys up top, betraying the guy they were behind? That’s the best position to do it from!

6

The case of the Maghreb it is a case closer to the Egyptian as the elite was the Byzantine easterners with an oppressive hand on the local christians who were not of their sect, and of course the non-christians still present.
The case of the Hispania it is the Visigoth elite - the Goth kings and the goth nobles themselves partially schismatics from the majority christianity.

7

Do we know why the tax burden in the early Islamic empire was so much smaller than the Byzantine? Because they didn’t have as much infrastructure and bureaucrats at home to support (the “decadence” theory?) Because they didn’t have to pay to defend multiple fronts simultaneously (the “Medieval: Total War” theory?) Because they were an empire in expansion and so could partly pay their troops in plunder?

8

The Arab armies had three major advantages over their opponents:

  1. Above all, fortunate timing, as described below:

  2. Unity of command and excellent morale in the decisive battles; and

  3. An army composed largely of light cavalry and infantry, used properly.

Each of these factors reinforced the others.

The Sassanids and Byzantines had just (well, within the decade) finished another in their seemingly endless round of fighting with each other, that left both empires war-weary, drained of manpower and money, and with populations pissed off.

Byzantine emperor Heraclitus basically turned the tide against the Sassanids - but at huge cost. It gained him provinces of his empire that were filled with the wrong variety of Christian, who then had to endure heavy persecution from the Byzantine Orthodox establishment. Such folks had no reason to fight for the Byzantine Empire, and every reason to welcome - and help with military intelligence, supplies, and in other ways - an invading army that promised toleration in return for a reasonable level of taxation.

In the case of the Sassanids - they had just been heavily defeated by the Byzantines and had several provinces stripped away; they were in no position to resist an incursion of Arabs.

The Arab strategy proved sound: they staged provocative raids, then retreated in the face of the inevitable Byzantine counter-attack, only turning to face (and crush) the Byzantine army when it was at the end of its supply lines and so weakened.

The effect of unity of command and morale is also very significant, and obviously a result of the above-noted timing. Much of the Byzantine army at the decisive battle was composed of Armenians and (other) Arabs. They proved highly reluctant to fight. Their nominal leader, Heraclitus, was too old and sick to take the field, and the constant problem with Byzantine military leadership - a reluctance to promote and trust competent subordinate generals, for fear they would become would-be emperors - caused havoc with Byzantine leadership. The result was hesitant, delaying leadership that did the Byzantine cause much harm.
In contrast, Islam and Islamic leadership had united the tribes on the other side, their morale was excellent, and their leadership reasonably united and unquestioned (at that particular time - fissures were to develop later, of course).

Here’s an article:

9

They didn’t do so well when the Mongols came at them, but that was a few hundred years later once they were the entrenched ones.

It’s easier to fight a battle if you have nothing to lose, rather than if you have something to protect.

10

Hardly anyone did.

11

What was even the first battle that the Arabs lost, once the expansion got started? They really seem to be roflstomping everyone there for a while, at least in the beginning. As far as I can make out (and if the sources can be trusted), Khalid ibn al-Walid never lost a battle. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen, unless you’re Alexander the Great (especially considering the scope of the campaigns). So, I guess that basically makes him Alexander the Great.

Obviously, they ran into the Franks at the Battle of Tours, in 732. Were they basically undefeated up until then? I’m not sure what was happening on the eastern flank.

12

The first one, actually - the Battle of Mu’tah in 629. It was a punitive strike by Muhammad against the Ghassanid dynasty, a Byzantine client at the northern end of the Arabian peninsula, purportedly for executing an emissary. The Arab force was supposedly substantially outnumbered and got chewed up pretty badly. However it set up the first bit of hagiography for Khalids ibn al-Walid, the fourth in command who supposedly extricated the army from total annihilation after his superior were killed and made a strategic retreat.

We discussed the early Arab armies and in particular Khalid in a old game thread about greatest military leaders some years ago. Although one has to be very wary of early Arab sources which are light on details and heavy on repetitive hagiographic tropes, there does seem to be substantial enough support( including from non-Arab sources ) warranting some genuine impressive military ability among the leading Arab generals. Khalid and Amr ibn al-A’as in particular.

Malthus has highlighted a number of the factors, the superb timing at the end of exhausting wars and the collapse into near anarchy of the Sassanid state probably being key. But despite this the Byzantine and Sassanid states still fielded battle-hardened core field armies that were a.) very experienced, b.) almost certainly better-equipped than their Arab opponents and c.) initially at least likely had numerical superiority. The only combat advantage, if it even had one subjectively, was the very large proportion of foot archers in the Arab armies and high mobility.

Although superior morale, interior communication lines ( at least initially ) and superior mobility ( man portable, but mostly not much cavalry - early Arab armies rode to battle particularly on camels, but mostly fought on foot, horses being in somewhat short supply ) helped, one doubts they were decisive factors. Occam’s Razor suggests something else and if we disregard the will of God( :wink: ), then superior generalship might have been the key.

The Sassanids had been busy assassinating their military leaders left and right as they battled for the throne. Heraclius was a competent general at best, not a military genius - he was more impressive for his organizational and political skills. Though Khalid’s hagiography in particular lays it on pretty thick, enough independent sources agree on his tactical and strategic acumen to suggest he was an excellent general fighting against opponents who for the most part overmatched.

Insomuch as the Byzatine and, far more so, the Sassanid empires were at that point paper bags, once those core armies were broke it became a snow-balling affair. Neither state at that point had the capacity to rebound from truly decisive beat-downs. Had Yarmouk or one of the early Mesopotamian battles gone heavily the other way the Arab state might have been contained to the penninsula. If Qaddisyia had gone the other way, the Sassanids might have survived in rump form on the other side of the Zagros mountains, much as the Byzantines did beyond the Taurus.

But they didn’t.

13

First of all that shouldn’t be assumed - it was cheaper in some areas, but not all. Egypt for example was treated as a cash cow to be squeezed by just about everybody, Byzantines and Arabs included. Where it was a cheaper it was for a variety of reasons, but simple bribery of local populaces was not the least of them. It was the same reason many Greeks cheered the Ottomans replacing their “Latin” overlords in the 14-15th centuries. Being less cruelly exploited by Muslims beat being more cruelly exploited by Christians.

This however was also a significant factor in the first generation or two. Rapid expansion meant lots of loot, which went quite a ways to balancing budgets. As time went on, easy conquests ceased, and more and more of the populace converted to Islam, taxation became a very thorny political and theological issue. In part it helped set the stage for the Abbasid revolution.

14

But even non-Western cites must be regarded with a wary eye ;). I’ve read parts of Akram’s book and I think he is far too uncritical in accepting early Arab accounts as gospel history. The sources are just wayyyyy to thin to accept a lot of the stuff from eras like the Ridda Wars in particular. There is simply nothing to corroborate them.

However it is worth pointing out that Khalid was very much out of political favor towards the end of his life and his reputation still survived that hostility very much intact. Which probably argues for it being at least pretty decent :).

15

Was there not also the plague, which severely affected Constantinople?

16

I would agree that foremost among the purely military factors favouring the Arabs was leadership. It is worth noting that Heraclitus wasn’t even present at the decisive battle of Yarmuk; he was too old and sick. He delegated the task to a bunch of subordinate leaders (and it is usually a bad sign when an army has divided command); there were something like five different contingents.

The original Byzantine plan was, I believe, to use these separate contingents to defeat the Arabs in detail, so the “divided command” aspect would not have mattered as much. However, the Arabs caught wind of this plan, and concentrated; thus the Byzantines had to concentrate as well. Unfortunately for them, this exacerbated conflicts & tensions between the leaders of the separate contingents, leading to a notable sluggishness in command.

17

Yes, the Plague of Justinian was still bouncing around, periodically hammering one population center after another and in general contributing to the exhaustion and weakness of the two empires. It didn’t seem to finally burn itself out in the region until the 8th century. But Constantinople had taken its heaviest hit earlier and in general the plague moved around like a careening pinball of misery.

It actually arguably helped save the Byzantine position in 639, the ‘Year of Ashes’. A combination of severe drought and a bad plague outbreak in the Arab ranks in Palestine ( which carried away another quality Arab general in Abu Ubayda ) devastated the local forces and helped give the Byzantines time to retrench behind the Taurus.

18

Until the death of Muhammad and the Shia/Sunni split, Islam emphasized the brotherhood of the “peoples of the book,” Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The Byzantines were interested in enforcing Orthodox Christianity, and the Sassanid official religion was Zoroastrianism, which was also a more rigid “one true faith,” though I believe the Muslims tolerated it as well. So taxes aside, many subject peoples would have been relieved at first to have new overlords.

19

I think the issue here is less ‘brotherhood’, and more the fact that people are generally much more interested in policing heresy rather than unbelief: most people are generally much more incensed and upset with dissidents within their own faith than with those outside the faith entirely. During most of Christian history, the punishment for Christian heretics were more severe than those for Jews or even pagans, which is part of why untl the Protestant Reformation, every Christian heresy was successfully wiped out of Europe. Likewise, the Zoroastrians of Persia were much more interested in suppressing dissident Zoroastrians (like the Zurvanites) than they were about policing Christianity, which is why some Christian heresies/schismatics like the Assyrian Church of the East sought refuge in Persia.

20

I’m no expert on this, I’m relying on what I read in in Frankopan’s “The Silk Roads.” His point is that the Muslim community(ies) became more preoccupied with policing heresy after the Sunni/Shia split, and as a consequence became less welcoming to other faiths as a way of drawing sharper distinctions between themselves.