The Arab Conquest

From the mid-seventh century, Muslim Arab armies from Saudi Arabia began to travel north into Central Asia and west across Africa, invading the countries they passed. The Sasanian Empire, exhausted from many years of war with the Romans, was spectacularly defeated and Iran and Iraq were soon conquered. By the 680s, the Arab armies were able to continue into Tranoxania, and were eventually to reach as far as the borders of China, beginning a new era of Islamic rule over much of Central Asia.