Absolute Monarchs
“Until the third decade of that century, the land of Arabia was terra incognita to the Christian world. But in September 622 the Prophet Mohammed had fled from the hostile city of Mecca to friendly Medina: this was the hegira, the event which marked the beginning of the Muslim era. Just eleven years later, his followers burst out of Arabia. The following year, an Arab army defeated the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius on the banks of the Yarmuk River; two years later still, they took Damascus; after ...five, Jerusalem; after eight, they controlled all Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. Within twenty years, the whole Persian Empire as far as the Oxus River had fallen to the Arab sword; within thirty, Afghanistan and most of the Punjab. Then the Muslims turned their attention to the West. Their progress across North Africa was somewhat slower, but by the end of the century they had reached the Atlantic, and by 732—still less than a century after their eruption from their desert homeland—they had (according to tradition) made their way over the Pyrenees as far as Tours.MoreLess
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