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The battle of Qadisiyyah was fought in 636 CE from November 1-4. The battle is not known well in Western history but it had major implications for the West and much of the globe. This was a battle where the Arab armies, newly converted to Islam, were able to defeat the Sasanid Persian Empire. The result was the conquest of what is now Iraq and eventually Persia, allowing the new Islamic Empire to emerge in the Middle East and, eventually, expand to other areas.

In 636 CE, there were two major universal religions, which were Christianity and Zoroastrianism. These faiths were supported by the two major superpowers of the Middle East, which were the Byzanitine and Sasanian Empires. Both these powers seemed invincible and held much great wealth. However, by the early 7th century CE, major wars across the Middle East devastated much of the region and led to both these empires to deplete their resources.<ref>For more on background to this period, see: Cutler, Anthony. 2009. <i>Image Making in Byzantium, Sasanian Persia, and the Early Muslim World.</i> Variorum Collected Studies Series. Farnham, Surrey, England ; Burlington, VT: Ashgate/Variorum.</ref>

With the main Persian army shattered, key outcome now became evident after the battle. First, a large amount of booty was captured from the Sasanian army. This helped finance later battles and the Muslim army to further march north. Second, with no major army left to face, the Arab army was now able to march to Ctesiphon, the great Sasanian capital. After a two month siege, the capital fell and the Arabs, for the first time, had conquered a major metropolis that was a truly global city, as it had trade connections that spanned almost the extent of the Old World. The loss of the city also led to the full conquest of Mesopotamia and Khuzestan, which were the most important provinces in the Sasanian Empire. In 650, a new phase of invasions was then ready, leading to the conquest of Persia and defeat of the Sasanian Empire.<ref>For more on the conquest of the Middle East by the Arab armies and invasion and conquest of Iran, see: Savant, Sarah Bowen. 2013. <i>The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory and Conversion.</i> Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.</ref>

Typically, the fall of one empire, in this case the Sasanian, and rise of another, the Islamic Empire, which became the Umayyad and later Abbasid Empire, as well as spawning other states, would not be that different from other succession of empires that was typical in the 1st millennium CE. However, the battle at Qadisiyyah and subsequent conquests it enabled allowed many social changes to occur that proved to spread to many regions.

One of the great results of the battle was the Arab armies were now in a position to benefit from the technical and infrastructure built by the Sasanians in the region of Iraq. This allowed them to build using new technical capabilities they acquired and developed using Persian and Classical science. Furthermore, scholars who were based in Persia, who had come from many parts of the ancient World, including Greece and India, now were employed by the Arabs. This allowed not only the great Golden Age of Arab science and philosophy to be possible, and thus develop indigenous new discoveries, but it also allowed much of the lost knowledge in Europe, after the collapse of Rome, to be copied by the Arabs. This knowledge was then transferred back to Europe in the Medieval period, eventually helping to influence the Enlightenment that allowed a new period of discovery to emerge in Europe.<ref>For more on how Arabs incorporated Persian and Classical science and knowledge, see: Al-Khalili, Jim. 2010. <i>Pathfinders: The Golden Age of Arabic Science.</i> London: Allen Lane.</ref>

If the battle resulted differently, where the Muslim armies could have been routed, then one possibility would be that Islam and the Islamic Empire would have found it harder to expand outside of Arabia. If the Sasanians were able to hold to their power then it would have been difficult for another major rival power to emerge in the Middle East. In effect, the Sasanians had to be defeated for the Islamic Empire to expand and for Islam to spread. In religion, this would have likely meant that Zoroastrianism, rather than an obscure religion today, could have remained relatively prominent and may have even expanded to other regions, perhaps even rivaling Christianity in places. Many of the tenants, good versus evil, resurrection of the dead, and judgment day were present in this religion, which could have made it attractive for some populations. The Arab language would have been far more obscure as well, while Persian and Greek, spoken by the Byzantines, could have become more common languages across the Middle East. Cities such as Baghdad would have likely not been founded, while the city of Ctesiphon, which was likely the largest city in the 7th century CE during the battle for Qadisiyyah, would have remained as the cosmopolitan center of the Sasanian Empire. It is hard to know if Jacobite Christianity, and Eastern Christianity in general, including the various Orthodox faiths, would have thrived in the Middle East if the outcome of Qadisiyyah would have been different, as the conflict between the Byzantines and Sasanians would have likely remained.<ref>For more on the significance of the conquest of Islam and fall of the Sasanians, see: Crawford, Peter. 2014. <i>The War of the Three Gods: Romans, Persians, and the Rise of Islam.</i> First North American edition. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing.</ref>

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