https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/11/science/al-qadisiyyah-site-satellite-images-scli-intl/index.html
This is where the Arabs defeated the Sassanids, the last of the great Persian empires. (Let's be honest with ourselves. The Safavids were no more than a regional power.)
I've seen some of these photos and they really are very useful. An enormous amount of stuff has been paved over or plowed over since they were taken. Some go back as far as the 1960s. You'd be surprised how good the cameras already were back then. IIRC you can get them for free off the USGS website.
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Do NOT look into histography of early Islam. Despite what Wikipedia suggests, we can believe basically nothing about it. It's a literal cabal dedicated towards it on Wikipedia, and the
jannies are too sandbipoc-sympathizing to let the truth ring out.
Also check 'em
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What's the truth? That it was a complete clusterfrick after Mohammad died? Feels like that part is well-documented.
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Early Islam is full of genocide and treachery. Without it, Islam likely would've just been a forgotten attempt at an r-slur trying to start a cult around himself.
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Yeah... that's how Arabs generally have always operated, long before Islam. That part is also pretty well-documented.
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What were they even doing other than fricking camels in the desert and maybe doing some trading with rome and india?
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Actually, we have an excellent modern analog of what early Islam looked like, which would be historically fascinating for anthropologists to study if they weren't afraid to draw similarities
(It's ISIS)
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Who the frick expects anything from wikipedia?
You get the reading list at the bottom and then assume that what that book actually says is the opposite of the cherry-picked nugget in the article.
Wikipedia is dying, apparently, and they've no-one to blame but themselves.
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