THE ISLAMIC OPENINGS

Notes on the Translation............................................
The Opening of Makkah .............................................
The Opening of Iraq....................................................
The Opening of Al-Mada'in.........................................
The Opening of Al-Sham ............................................
The Opening of Jerusalem.........................................
The Opening of Egypt.................................................
The Opening of Alexandria ........................................
The Opening of Persia................................................
The Opening of Iraq 2.................................................
The Opening of Khurasan ..........................................
The Opening of North Africa ......................................
The Opening of Cyprus... ...........................................
The Opening of Constantinople.................................
The Opening of Andalusia..........................................
References..................................................................

We have rejected the traditional translation of fataha as "conquered" in
favor of "opened". Thus the English title of this book is The Islamic
Openings rather than The Islamic Conquests. In the military context, fataha
is usually applied only to the actions of the Muslims in bringing Islamic rule
to other lands. They opened those lands to Islam, inviting but not forcing
the native people to join Islam. But when other powers conquered other
nations, they did not open them, and another verb in Arabic is used for
their conquests.
Jizyah was imposed on every non-Muslim who kept his religion. It was
taken as a payment for protecting the city or country. The amount was
assigned according to the financial status of the people, and it was not
collected from young children, women, old men or the poor.
This book contains many place names and personal names that are
unfamiliar to the modern reader. Arabic does not write the vowels, thus
making transliteration of these names difficult. Most of these names are
not Arabic, so the translator cannot use Arabic morphology to determine
the vowels. We have attempted to find these names in other books with
limited success. Where possible, the English form of the name is used if it
is likely to be familiar to the reader, but in most cases the place names
herein are uncertain.
A simplified spelling for Arabic names is used throughout and the long
vowels are not indicated. The character ’ represents the Arabic hamza and
represents the Arabic 'ain.
The character ~ is to represent the Arabic words Salla Allahu 'alaihi wa
sallam meaning "Blessings and peace of Allah be upon him."