Byzantine-Persian exhaustion enabled early Muslim conquests

Evidence

The claim that Islam was spread through war in the initial stages after its emergence in Arabia is indeed accurate. In the two decades after the Prophet’s death in 632 CE, Muslim armies defeated its two great neighbors, the Byzantine and Persian (Sassanid) Empires, conquered large segments of their land, and set up an Islamic empire. They were able to defeat these two powerful empires because constant warfare between the Byzantines and the Persians over the previous century had left the people war-weary. In other words, war was a constant fact of life at the time. In fact, some villages welcomed the Muslim armies. Once in power the Muslim invaders gave their subjects the choice of either converting to Islam or paying a tax (unlike their Orthodox Christian counterparts, who persecuted heretics and ruled through fear, intimidation, and terror). — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 195 (#expands, via linked claim)

In the wake of the Muslim conquests, little changed for the average Christian or Jewish resident of ex-Byzantine Syria. In Damascus, for example, the same family that had administered the city under Constantinople now did so for their new Muslim masters. Bureaucratic apparatuses were left in tact, and the language of administration continued to be Greek (or Persian in the former Persian empire). In the two centuries that followed, the Near East, from Egypt to Iran, became the theater of a tremendous though gradual cultural transformation: out of Greek, Persian, Arabic, Syriac, and Indian elements, a new Islamic civilization was forged. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 260 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Early Muslim conquests rode on Byzantine-Persian exhaustion as war was then the norm; Muslim conquest initially left Byzantine administrative structures and personnel untouched; The Muslim conquest of Syria initially preserved Byzantine administrative continuity. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 260 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Early Muslim conquests rode on Byzantine-Persian exhaustion as war was then the norm #corroborates (0.95)
• Early Muslim conquests succeeded partly because war-weary peoples welcomed the armies #expands (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 195
• Muslim conquest initially left Byzantine administrative structures and personnel untouched #qualifies (0.75)
• The Muslim conquest of Syria initially preserved Byzantine administrative continuity. #qualifies (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 260