The Arab Conquest Ends the Sasanian Empire
Two battles, a fugitive king, and the end of a thousand years of Persian imperial rule
Quick facts
- Battle of al-Qadisiyyah
- 636 CE
- Battle of Nahavand
- 642 CE
- Last Sasanian king
- Yazdegerd III, murdered near Merv, 651 CE
- Sasanian Empire duration
- 224-651 CE
What happened
Arab Muslim armies broke Sasanian Persia in two decisive battles. At al-Qadisiyyah in 636 CE, Muslim cavalry killed the Sasanian general Rostam during a sandstorm, and the numerically superior Persian army collapsed; the victory opened Iraq to the Rashidun Caliphate and the capture of the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon. The last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III, raised another army to resist, but it was shattered at the Battle of Nahavand in 642 CE, a defeat that ended organized Sasanian resistance. Yazdegerd fled eastward for nearly a decade before he was murdered by a local miller near Merv in 651 CE, the definitive end of the Sasanian dynasty that had ruled Persia since 224 CE.
Why it matters
The conquest replaced Persia's Zoroastrian state religion and Sasanian monarchy with Arab Muslim rule, folding Iran into the new Islamic world for the rest of its history. But conquest was not the same as erasure: Persian administrative culture, language, and identity survived the transition and would reassert themselves within a few centuries, a tension this timeline follows through the Samanids, Ferdowsi, and beyond. The fuller Rashidun conquest story, including Muhammad, the caliphs, and the wider Arab expansion, has its own dedicated timeline.
How we know
The battles of al-Qadisiyyah and Nahavand and Yazdegerd III's death are recorded in early Islamic historical traditions and corroborated by later Persian chronicles, giving independent textual traditions for the same campaigns.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Sasanian Empire · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- World History Encyclopedia. Early Muslim Conquests (622-656 CE) · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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Related timelines
- The Rise of Islam → · The Rashidun Caliphate's wider conquests, and the life of Muhammad that preceded them, are covered in the Rise of Islam timeline.
- Ancient Persia → · The Sasanian Empire that fell in 651 CE is covered from its founding in the Ancient Persia timeline.