ABSTRACT
Between 632 and 720, the Muslim Arabs created an empire that extended from the Iberian Peninsula to the Indus River in modern Pakistan. The success of the conquests derived from a combination of high motivation on the part of the Arabs and the weakness of the Byzantines and Sasanians at the end of their mammoth, thirty-year war with each other. The new Umayyad Empireproved to be highly creative in adapting elements of Byzantine and Sasanian administrative practice, which allowed itto build a durable bureaucracy. On the other hand, its reputation for corruption and its bigotry toward non-Arabs led to a revolutionary opposition movement.
