The Dawson Ledger
Event

Muslim (Rashidun) Conquest of Persia (633-651 CE)

End of the Sassanid Empire; transition to Islamic rule in Iran (Cambridge History of Iran vol.

Islamic

Event Details

  • Date: 633 CE-651 CE
  • Type: conquest
  • Civilizations: islamic, persian-iranian

Description

End of the Sassanid Empire; transition to Islamic rule in Iran (Cambridge History of Iran vol. 4 covers the period; Kennedy 2007).

Quantitative facts and their sourcing

  • Dates 633-651; outcome: Muslim victory (Wikipedia infobox).
  • Battle of al-Qadisiyyah 16-19 November 636 (Rashidun ~30,000; Sassanid 50,000-100,000 per Wikipedia stub; casualties "heavy" only; no number asserted).
  • PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): al-Baladhuri (Hitti 1916), al-Kadisiyah section (about p. 411): Persians "numbered about 120,000, and were accompanied by thirty elephants"; Muslims "numbered between 9,000 and 10,000"; Nihawand section (contents p. 471): Persian host 60,000 "and, according to other estimates, 100,000"; one tradition dates Nihawand to year 21 AH (641/642 CE). Claims.

Confidence

medium (dates/outcome); no casualty data. Numbers marked "Wikipedia-compiled (stub)" come from a secondary aggregator and must be upgraded to page-level scholarly citations before any Official use.

Citations

  • baladhuri-hitti-1916-ia [PRIMARY-READ] al-Baladhuri, Philip K. Hitti (transl.) (1916). al-Baladhuri, The Origins of the Islamic State (Futuh al-Buldan), part 1, transl. Philip K. Hitti (Columbia University, 1916); archive.org scan, read. Columbia University / Longmans (scan: Internet Archive). https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.175260. Read 2026-10-12; location: pp. 174 (Ajnadin, per contents), 207-208 (al-Yarmuk), ~411 (al-Kadisiyah), 471ff. (Nihawand, per contents).
  • kennedy2007-great-arab-conquests [formal] Hugh Kennedy (2007). The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL3275651W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • donner1981-early-islamic-conquests [formal] Fred M. Donner (1981). The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton University Press. https://openlibrary.org/works/OL13531000W. Verified 2026-10-11 (Open Library record found; edition exists, page-level not checked).
  • wp-muslim-conquest-of-persia [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Muslim conquest of Persia (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_conquest_of_Persia. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).
  • wp-battle-of-al-qadisiyyah [STUB (secondary aggregator)] Wikipedia contributors (2026). Battle of al-Qadisiyyah (Wikipedia; secondary aggregator, stub-grade). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_al-Qadisiyyah. Verified 2026-10-11 (resolves).

Review status

SOFT draft. Not Official. Needs editor review of CAD tags (estimated) and page-level citation upgrade.

About this entry

A draft entry preserved from civilization.study. Evidence grade: low. 3 of 5 listed sources are fully documented; the rest are names only. Method and sources

Conflict card

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conquest · 633 CE-651 CE

Muslim (Rashidun) Conquest of Persia (633-651 CE)

End of the Sassanid Empire; transition to Islamic rule in Iran (Cambridge History of Iran vol.

Evidence: Primary text read Draft estimate

What the record says

  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Dates 633-651; outcome: Muslim victory (Wikipedia infobox).
  • Unverified (Wikipedia-compiled) Battle of al-Qadisiyyah 16-19 November 636 (Rashidun ~30,000; Sassanid 50,000-100,000 per Wikipedia stub; casualties "heavy" only; no number asserted).
  • Primary text PRIMARY-SOURCE (read 2026-10-12): al-Baladhuri (Hitti 1916), al-Kadisiyah section (about p. 411): Persians "numbered about 120,000, and were accompanied by thirty elephants"; Muslims "numbered between 9,000 and 10,000"; Nihawand section (contents p. 471): Persian host 60,000 "and, according to other estimates, 100,000"; one tradition dates Nihawand to year 21 AH (641/642 CE). Claims.

Confidence. medium (dates/outcome); no casualty data.

Where it sits

Sources and evidence

No page-level citation is claimed for any source. Figures marked unverified come from a Wikipedia aggregator and are not for Official use.

Link to this conflict

Art: Patterns of Civilization chronicle art, made with AI: illustrations, not historical evidence. Entries are drafts preserved from civilization.study. Method and sources.