Why were the early Islamic armies so good?

[AK84]

@Tamerlane

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 :).

Actually, Akram spends a lot of time talking about logistics and the state of the armies (he points out that most of the Romans units and formations in the Yarmuk campaign were from Italy and Greece and had consequently little idea of campaigning in that terrain, the formations that had served in the region earlier had been decimated by the Persian war), and in this he is far better than most writers on military affairs generally. It helps that he was a career army officer himself (and actually served in the region in WW2).