>>>”The Sassanids exhausted themselves fighting the Byzantines and were conquered by the Arabs in an astonishingly small period of time.”
While this is true, I also think this is a rather one dimensional and simplistic view of how & why the Bedouin Arabs defeated the Sassanids. There were definitely other important contributing factors to the fall of the Sassanid Empire.
I recommend reading this book:
Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War (General Military)
http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Desert-Ancient-General-Military/dp/1846031087
Also see “Customer Reviews” in the above link.
Other related readings:
Genocide of “Zarathushtis” (”Zoroastrians” in Iran)
http://ahura.homestead.com/files/GENOCIDEofZarathushtiesWEBJULY07_2_.pdf
History of Jihad against Zoroastrians of Iran:
http://historyofjihad.org/persia.html
P.S. – I often read and hear about how “Arabs” contributed so much to “Islamic” Architecture, literature, poetry, paintings and generally what has been coined as the “Islamic Civilization” particularly in the middle ages in the ME and North Africa (even in Southern Spain for instances). This view is often highly distorted, misrepresented and inaccurate.
Persians, Egyptians and North Africans (Carthagians i.e. current Tunisians) all had cultured and civilized pre-Islamic pasts. When the mentioned nations, particularly Iranians, were militarily defeated and, in many instances, forcibly converted to Islam, they brought in cultured traits and a tradition of learning into Islam.
In fact, the first codified grammar of Arabic was written by a Persian. The Arabs were unlettered, Mohammed himself was completely illiterate, in addition to being cruel, cunning and ruthless.
Therefore, the much vaunted Islamic Renaissance & Golden Age was, in essence, a renaissance of the Persian (Zoroastrian) converts to Islam beginning during the second Arab rulers of Iran [Abbasiad Caliphate].
During the first four caliphs Abba (Abu) Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali (the last three who were murdered by other Muslims in cold blood) and the Ummayad caliphate (the first Arab rulers of Iran) at Damascus and Iraq, there was no such thing as the Islamic Renaissance.
It was the Persians, North African and Egyptian converts who had a pre-Islamic legacy of being civilized, which they carried forward after being converted to Islam. In fact, Islam attempted to smother all pre-Islamic legacy of culture and civilization, and so it was only after the initial flush of Islamic savagery had passed over, that the newly converted people could - after a generation or so - pick up the threads of a civilized life.
Enjoyed reading the PS comments.. spot on! Now, would you mind passing this detailed account to the man in the WhiteHouse? Remind him too, Islam/muslims only came into being after 632AD(death of their so called messenger)& when Arabs and Islam swept through the Middle East in 630 A.D., they encountered 600 years of Assyrian Christian civilization, with a rich heritage, a highly developed culture, and advanced learning institutions. It is this civilization that became the foundation of the Arab civilization. Secondly... once the Christian Assyrian & other communities were drained of its population through forced conversion to Islam, the communities dwindled below a critical threshold, it ceased producing the scholars that were the intellectual driving force of the Islamic civilization, and that is when the so called “Golden Age of Islam” came to an end (about 850 A.D.). Since this time, the islamic civilization had produced nothing great by itself.
If someone else tried to claim a work, the real author could then ask them to provide the secret code that was HANDWRITTEN or painted into it. (No photocopying in those days) so the false claimant could not identify the code whereas the real author could.
The earliest Koranic text has such a code and it belongs to an Iranian whose name if memory serves was “something” the Iranian (Irani).
Another pointer is that the Koranic references of beautiful places, beautiful women and so forth were references to Iranian places and people.
I am not sure where I put the folder with the notes but it is on hand if I really search for it.
You could always do a google search in the subject. It must exist out there.