How did they do it? I get that the Romans and Sassanids were severely weakend but still. One day they they invent a religion, go out of the desert and next they conquer an immense territory.
>>68133642
Woops, I meant this guy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid
>>68133642
Their cavalry has a +3 roll modifier for dessert terrain
>>68133642
Light cavalry.
Horse nomads have been known to fuck shit up if they ever get all their tribes united, see the Mongols.
>>68133642
Cavalry armies were pretty tough opponents. Another thing is that most of those lands are wastelands
>>68133642
What many forget: Mudslime hordes back then didn't give a fuck about dying, because muh djihad and martyrs and the like.
They had literally nothing to lose, which madr them very savage on field.
They were overextended, facing various barbarian hordes, had lead poisoning, civil wars and Muslims bred faster then Romans.
>>68133642
The Byzantine and persian empires were weakened due to years of wars.
The muslim population was told that they are fighting a holy war and if they die they will get direct entry into heaven.
It also helped that they had some of the best military commanders of their time.
>>68135656
They weren't horse nomads though
Mongols literally fucked that into them ;-)
To answer OP, desert dwellers follow anyone promising them salvation from a terrible existence in a giant oven
Muslims create blight wherever they go. The blight is not economically productive, so capturing and holding territory is not sustainable. Therefore, muslims need only do hit and run attacks to wear out the enemy, and retreat back to the blight, until they win. Muslims also reproduce like rabbits.
>>68133642
You answered your own question, there was a growing power vacuum in the region, the Muslims took advantage of that and filled the void. History has followed this pattern since the beginning of human civilization, power vacuums bring rise to new empires.
Both empires were at their last legs while facing civil war from all angles with the vassal states being tired of the people running the Empires and their endless wars overtaxing them + corruption, so they had no problem with new rulers.
Also, the Justinian plague had pretty much killed off 40 million inbetween both empires.
So really, a bunch of zulu niggers in canoes could have conquered that shit and spread the teachings of Unkulunkulu, so it would be the second dominant religion today.
Morale, leadership and a martial culture when combined with weakened enemies produces surprising results no matter the circumstances.
>>68133642
civil war everywhere, and while mudshits haven't really advanced much in the past thousand years, at that time they were at least on-par with the west.
Religious tolerance to the people of the book + jizya laws
>>68136015
They still don't give much of a fuck for dying. Imagine if they were well trained, equipped and united.
>>68135786
>>68135656
The byzantines and the sassanids were both heavy cav armies. By this time bother of them made heavy use of cataphracts and horse archers (Armenians for the byzantines and persian/steppe for the sassanids). Both would have been more proficient with light cav as well.
The byzantines were severely overstretched and weakened and still held out for dozens of centuries. North Africa and the levant was a freebie because it wasn't as well defended as anatolia and early islam allowed for more religious tolerance than eastern orthodoxy for religious minorities (jews miaphysites, coptics).
Imagine if the rapefugees were a genuine army with an intent to conquer and you will start to understand how they did it.
Swathes of land means nothing if you have no means to defend it. The current crisis has shown that the best army is just an endless horde of people.
>>68136952
At least none of this will ever happen, since they lack intelligence.
>>68133642
>one day
>not hundreds of years
>>68137038
>The byzantines and the sassanids were both heavy cav armies.
your blinding autism has prevented you from seeing that we were referring to the Arab horsemen, not the Byzantines/Sassanids.
>>68137762
I was rejecting the notion that arab cavalry was the reason for their success you shithead. They had inferior cav
>>68137874
>They had inferior cav
apparently not.
>>68133642
Allah helped.
>>68133642
Only true answer:
It's the logistics of ** raising a bigger army than any opponent. **
That era of warfare preferred undisciplined swarming nomads.
Discipline and professionalism started to matter around 1700.
>>68133642
the tribes of the arabian peninsular were always a threat to the adjacent empires. united they were a very dangerous army. they employed conniving tactics, had very capable generals and highly motivated soldiers.
>>68139149
>Discipline and professionalism started to matter around 1700
>What is Rome
>>68139691
A country overwhelmed by massive hordes of undisciplined swarming Germanics.
I thought you were asking about Christianity.
look how it took over Rome
>>68139691
Professionalism matters when there is about the same size of opposing armies.
3-4 times bigger armies can always envelope the other.
Firearms mean that a small unit can shoot a larger unit before it comes closer. Especially the big targets that are cavalry.
How did the British conquer so much Muslim land? By using small firearm units that were technologically superior to sword-wielding cavalry or spear-wielding Zulus.
This is also why colonialism was profitable. Instead of sending a three times larger army to conquer it was cost-effective to send a small, technologically superior army.
