Byzantine as well as the Arabic historical tradition exaggerates very greatly the numerical strength of the troops on both sides. In reality, the armies of the two contending sides were not very large. Some scholars set the number of Arabian soldiers who took part in the Syrian and Palestinian campaigns at 27,000 and even then fear that this figure is an exaggeration of the actual number. The Byzantine army was probably even less numerous. Also, the military operations were carried on, not only by the Arabs of the peninsula, but also by the Arabs of the Syrian desert adjoining the Persian and Byzantine borders.
Closer study of early Islam clearly moves the religious element into the background for the political events of the period. Islam changed into a political force, because only as such could it triumph over its enemies. Had Islam remained forever a simple moral and religious teaching, its existence would have ceased quickly in skeptical, materialistic Arabia, particularly in the hostile atmosphere of Mecca. The champions of Islam had to deal not so much with the conversion of the infidels, as with their subjection.
Muhammed
and Islam
