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Hello in 632 of the Prophet Muhammad died and left behind the nascent religion of Islam among a few tribes in the Arabian desert

They were relatively small in number

They were divided among themselves and they were surrounded by vast and powerful empires

Yet within a few decades Arab armies control territory from northern Spain to southern Iran and out to the Caucasus and

Islamic ideas had begun to refashion profound the societies they touched

It's one of the most extraordinary and significant events in world history

But how did the Arab armies achieve such extensive victories?

How did they govern the people they conquered and what was the relationship in the achievements of the Arabs and the religious beliefs?

They carried with them with me to discuss the Arab conquest a Hugh Kennedy

Professor of Arabic in the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London

Amir Abenistan Senior Lecturer in Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Cambridge and Robert Hoelan

Professor in Arabic and Middle East Studies at the University of St Andrews

Hugh Kennedy when we talk about the Arabs of the Arab conquests who in that time in the 7th century are we talking about?

We're talking basically about the people who spoke Arabic that's the only meaningful definition

I think of an Arab somebody whose mother tongue is Arabic and the Arabs lived in

largely nomadic tribal life in the Arabian Peninsula

What is now Saudi Arabian Yemen and also in the desert margins of Syria and Iraq but there were no

Arabs in Egypt there were no Arabs in North Africa none of these were Arabic countries

Arab countries in any sense nor was Syria and most of Iraq Arab countries an Arab country

So the the Arabs were confined to this this central core area

...