- Where we are so far -- In 632 CE Prophet Muhammad died and Abu Bakr was chosen by the residents of Medina as the Caliph -- Soon after, several of the Arab tribes that were allied with the Prophet rebelled against Abu Bakr -- Abu Bakr and his general KIW led a successful campaign to bring these tribes back in line -- These were known as the Ridda, or Apostasy Wars -- Abu Bakr commanded KIW to begin an invasion of southern Persia. -- KIW was successful and conquered most of the area around the Euphrates River -- At the same time, Abu Bakr also ordered Abu Ubaidah to lead an invasion into Syria -- Abu Ubaidah ran into strong resistance so Abu Bakr had KIW come from Persia to assist -- KIW led the Muslims to conquer Syria all the way up to Damascus -- Back in Medina, Abu Bakr died and Umar ibn Al-Khattab became the Caliph -- Umar removed KIW as the leader of the Muslim armies and put Abu Ubaidah back in charge -- The Romans and Syrians got over their initial shock of the Muslim invasion and began a strong counterattack. - In the last episode we discussed how the Romans and Persians began to make a comeback - Now we'll go into the details of that comeback and the result - We will first discuss the events in Syria and then those in Persia