651 -- The End of Antiquity

The Roman (purple) and Persian (yellow) empires around the year 600 AD.

Arab conquests to 646

1 BC by --- Establishment of stable Roman-Persian frontier at the Euphrates River. Development of client states by both empires among the Arab tribesmen to the south. The Roman Arab client state were the Ghassanids, who later converted to Christianity with the rest of the Empire.

The border was constantly contested. Most battles, and thus most fortifications, were concentrated in the hilly regions of the north, as the vast Arabian or Syrian Desert (Roman Arabia) separated the rival empires in the south. The only dangers expected from the south were occasional raids by nomadic Arab tribesmen. Both empires therefore allied themselves with small, semi-independent Arab principalities, which served as buffer states and protected Byzantium and Persia from Bedouin attacks. The Byzantine clients were the Ghassanids; the Persian clients were the Lakhmids. The Ghassanids and Lakhmids feuded constantly, which kept them occupied, but that did not greatly affect the Byzantines or the Persians. In the 6th and 7th centuries, various factors destroyed the balance of power that had held for so many centuries. (WP).

591 -- Next-to-Last Roman-Persian War ends. Roman Emperor Maurice (Constantinople) restores Khosrow II  to the throne of Persia, ending a civil war in the Persian Empire.

602 -- Military coup in the Roman Empire, Emperor Maurice, an ally of Khosrow II of Persia, is deposed by the Army in favor of Phocas.

In 602, the Byzantine army rebelled against Emperor Maurice, largely due to exhaustion and outrage over orders to continue campaigning north of the Danube in winter as well as previous cuts in wages. The army declared Phocas, by then a centurion, to be the new emperor, raising him on a shield (the traditional method of declaring emperors) on 23 November 602 (WP)

602 -- Start of the Last Persian-Roman War. Khosrow II, Shah of Persia, invades Roman Empire.

602 -- Revolt of the Arab tribes begins against both the Romans and the Persians.

The Byzantine clients, the Arab Ghassanids, converted to the Monophysite form of Christianity, which was regarded as heretical by the established Byzantine Orthodox Church. The Byzantines attempted to suppress the heresy, alienating the Ghassanids and sparking rebellions on their desert frontiers. The Lakhmids also revolted against the Persian king Khusrau II. Nu'man III (son of Al-Monder IV), the first Christian Lakhmid king, was deposed and killed by Khusrau II in 602, because of his attempt to throw off Persian suzerainty. 

604 -- Death of Saint Gregory I (Gregory the Great) after a fourteen-year reign as Pope in Rome.

Gregory is known for instigating  the Gregorian Mission to convert the then-pagan Anglo-Saxons in England to Christianity (the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome) . He is also well known for his writings, which were more prolific than those of any of his predecessors as Pope. (WP)

609 -- Heraclius the Younger, having established (with his father) a rebel Roman state in North Africa, sails from Carthage to Constantinople, laying naval siege to the city. He defeats Phocas after a war, and proclaims himself Emperor.

On October 5, 610, Heraclius was crowned for a second time, this time in the Chapel of St. Stephen within the Great Palace; at the same time he married Fabia, who took the name Eudokia. After her death in 612, he married his niece Martina in 613; this second marriage was considered incestuous and was very unpopular. In the reign of Heraclius's two sons, the divisive Martina was to become the center of power and political intrigue. Despite widespread hatred for Martina in Constantinople, Heraclius took her on campaigns with him and refused attempts by Patriarch Sergius to prevent and later dissolve the marriage.

610 -- Emperor Heraclius launches series of disastrous campaigns against Khosrow II of Persia to recover lost territory. Persia overruns Roman territory in the Holy Land and Mesopotamia, and in the Caucasus mountains.

614 -- Persians take Roman Jerusalem. True Cross carried to Ctesiphon, the Persian capital

617-618 -- (Zoroastrian) Persians conquer (Christian) Roman Egypt, a Roman province since 30 BC.

622 -- Roman Emperor Heraclius launches a renewed campaign to recover lost Roman lands from the Persians, and to recover the True Cross. Heraclius makes an alliance with the Göktürk Turks.

627 -- The Battle of Nineveh, the climactic battle of the Last Roman-Persian War.  Emperor Heraclius defeats Khosrow II in a bold stroke into Mesopotamia, and recovers lost Roman lands in the East, as well as the True Cross.

In mid-September 627, Heraclius invaded the Persian (Sasanian) heartland in a surprising, risky winter campaign. Khosrow II appointed Rhahzadh as the commander of an army to confront him. Heraclius' Göktürk allies quickly deserted, while Rhahzadh's reinforcements did not arrive in time. In the ensuing battle, Rhahzadh was slain and the remaining Sasanians retreated.

The Byzantine victory later resulted in civil war in Persia, and for a period of time restored the (Eastern) Roman Empire to its ancient boundaries in the Middle East. The Sasanian civil war significantly weakened the Sasanian Empire. (WP)

628 -- Khosrow II, the last great Shah of the Persian Empire, is assassinated in a military coup by the Army.

630 Mar 21 -- Heraclius restores the True Cross to Jersualem.


632 (+/- 2 years) -- Arabs launch invasion of Persian Mesopotamia. Dates from here forward, including ordering of events, are subject to contestation.

When Western academics first investigated the Muslim conquest of Persia, they relied solely on the accounts of the Armenian Christian bishop Sebeos, and accounts in Arabic written some time after the events they describe. The most significant work was probably that of Arthur Christensen, and his L’Iran sous les Sassanides, published in Copenhagen and Paris in 1944.^[

Recent scholarship has begun to question the traditional narrative: Parvaneh Pourshariati, in her Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian-Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran, published in 2008, provides both a detailed overview of the problematic nature of trying to establish exactly what happened, and a great deal of original research that questions fundamental facts of the traditional narrative, including the timeline and specific dates.

Pourshariati's central thesis is that contrary to what was commonly assumed, the Sassanian Empire was highly decentralized, and was in fact a "confederation" with the Parthians, who themselves retained a high level of independence. Despite their recent victories over the Byzantine Empire, the Parthians unexpectedly withdrew from the confederation, and the Sassanians were thus ill-prepared and ill-equipped to mount an effective and cohesive defense against the Muslim armies. Moreover, the powerful northern and eastern Parthian families, the kust-i khwarasan and kust-i adurbadagan, withdrew to their respective strongholds and made peace with the Arabs, refusing to fight alongside the Sassanians.

Another important theme of Pourshariati's study is a re-evaluation of the traditional timeline. Pourshariati argues that the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia "took place, not, as has been conventionally believed, in the years 632–634, after the accession of the last Sasanian king Yazdgerd III (632–651) to power, but in the period from 628 to 632." An important consequence of this change in timeline means that the Arab conquest started precisely when the Sassanians and Parthians were engaged in internecine warfare over succession to the Sassanian throne. (WP)

636 -- Arabs invade Roman Egypt.

637 -- Arabs conquer the Persian capital of Ctesiphon (Mesopotamia) after a year-long siege.

The Persian volunteers who had accepted the power of the Arabs showed the Arab commander Sa'd a downstream site where they could cross the river, but it was not too sure if such a transaction would be possible, given the high water level. The following morning Sa'd asked volunteers to cross the river on horseback. At first a group of six volunteer knights, at the command of Asim ibn 'Amr al-Tamimi entered the river to wade through it. A detachment of Sassanid cavalry was sent to intercept them, thus entering into the waters of the Tigris. In the clash that followed, the Arabs had the best, finally putting foot on the eastern shore. The first group of volunteers was immediately followed by other horse-drawn formations. The infantry was probably also sent on the eastern shore of the Tigris with boats moored on the shore.

The Sassanian forces were too inferior to offer effective resistance to Arabs, and so Ctesiphon fell. Led by Asim ibn 'Amr, Muslim forces entered the Sassanian capital . The columns entered the center of the city without finding any Persian resistance. They reached the White Palace (Taq-i Kisra), home of the Persian government, and occupied it. Ctesiphon fell in the Arab hands without any battle

638 -- Arabs complete conquest of Persian Mesopotamia

639 -- Arabs conquer Roman Jerusalem after a year-long siege.
639 -- Arabs conquer Roman Armenia.

641 -- Arabs conquer Roman Damascus after a short siege.

641 -- Persians attempt to regain lost territory from Arabs. It ends with the disastrous Battle of Nahavand.

The battle is known to Muslims as the "Victory of Victories." The Sassanid King Yazdegerd III escaped to the Merv area, but was unable to raise another substantial army. It was a decisive victory for the Arab Rashidun Caliphate and the Persians consequently lost the surrounding cities including Spahan (renamed Isfahan).

The former Sassanid provinces, in alliance with Parthian and White Hun nobles, resisted for a few more years in the region south of the Caspian Sea, even as the Rashidun Caliphate was replaced by the Umayyads, thus perpetuating the Sassanid court styles, Zoroastrian religion, and Persian speech.

646 -- Arabs complete conquest of Roman Egypt.
647 -- Arabs, using Egypt as a base, begin invasion of Roman Africa (Libya, Tunisia, Algeria). It is temporarily halted by Rome (Constantinople) in exchange for tribute.

648 -- Arabs conquer Persian Fars in the Iranian homeland. 

n 648, 'Abd-Allah ibn al-'Ash'ari forced the Persian governor of Estakhr, Mahak, to surrender the city. However, the inhabitants of the city would later rebel in 649/650 while its newly appointed governor, 'Abd-Allah ibn 'Amir, was trying to capture Gor. The military governor of Estakhr, 'Ubayd Allah ibn Ma'mar, was defeated and killed. In 650/651, Yazdegerd went there to plan an organized resistance against the Arabs, and, after some time, went to Gor. However, Estakhr failed to put up a strong resistance, and was soon sacked by the Arabs, who killed over 40,000 defenders. The Arabs then quickly seized Gor, Kazerun and Siraf, while Yazdegerd fled to Kerman. Muslim control of Fars remained shaky for a time, with several local rebellions following the conquest.

651  -- Arabs conquer the remaining Persian Empire, including modern Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. Murder of the last Persian Emperor.

665  -- Arabs launch renewed attack on Roman Africa. They take Roman Carthage and other cities, and establish an Arab state based in Tunisia.

The new offensive began, according to Will Durant, to protect Egypt "from flank attack by Byzantine Cyrene". So "an army of more than 40,000 Muslims advanced through the desert to Barca, took it, and marched to the neighborhood of Carthage", defeating a defending Byzantine army of 20,000 in the process.

Next came a force of 10,000 Arabs led by the Arab general Uqba ibn Nafi and enlarged by thousands of others. Departing from Damascus, the army marched into North Africa and took the vanguard. In 670 the city of Kairouan (roughly 80 mi south of modern Tunis) was established as a refuge and base for further operations. This would become the capital of the Islamic province of Ifriqiya, which would cover the coastal regions of today's western Libya, Tunisia, and eastern Algeria.