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Y201: The Rise of Islam c.550–750

The Middle East c.550–620: the rival empires, Arab military strengths and Muhammad’s Meccan years

  • 1 thing to know
  • Unit group 2

Overview

Recall questions on the Byzantine and Sassanian empires and their wars, plague and the Arab client kingdoms, Arab military strengths and raiding, and Muhammad’s early life, first revelation and Meccan opposition.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

Why was raiding, rather than pitched battle, the characteristic form of Arab warfare?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    Which two great empires bordered Arabia, and how did they relate to each other?

    Model answer

    The Byzantine and Sassanian Persian empires bordered Arabia, and they fought each other repeatedly through the sixth century and in a final devastating war from 602.

  2. 2

    Explain how the long Byzantine–Persian wars weakened both empires.

    Model answer

    Decades of campaigning drained their treasuries, forced heavy taxation on their provinces and exhausted their armies, so that by the 620s both were financially and militarily spent and their frontier provinces were alienated.

  3. 3

    What effect did plague have on the Byzantine and Sassanian empires from the 540s?

    Model answer

    Recurring outbreaks killed a large part of the settled population, cutting tax revenues and the pool of recruits, while the thinly spread nomads of Arabia suffered far less.

  4. 4

    How did the two empires' treatment of their Arab client kingdoms affect the frontier?

    Model answer

    Both abandoned the buffer states that had policed the desert edge for them, so the frontier was left unguarded and the client tribes were left resentful and available to a new leader.

  5. 5

    State three military strengths the Arabs possessed.

    Model answer

    They had the mobility given by camels and horses, an intimate knowledge of desert terrain into which they could retreat and where pursuing armies could not follow, and long experience of rapid raiding warfare.

  6. 6

    Why was raiding, rather than pitched battle, the characteristic form of Arab warfare?

    Model answer

    Tribes could not afford heavy casualties among their own kin, so the object was to seize animals and goods and withdraw quickly, which rewarded speed and surprise over standing and fighting.

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