4396–4471 AM · 636 CE — 711 CE · world history
The Arab Conquests and the Caliphate
In seventy years the Arabs take Persia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa and Spain.
Two exhausted powers, Byzantium and Sasanian Persia, cannot absorb the shock. Persia disappears entirely; Byzantium loses its richest provinces. In 711 Arab forces cross Gibraltar and take most of Iberia. A single zone of learning stretches from the Atlantic to the Indus, with Baghdad and Córdoba preserving and translating Greek science.