Rashidun & Umayyad Iraq

In a single generation Arab armies swept away the Sasanian empire, and Iraq became the turbulent frontier of a new Islamic world. From the garrison cities of Kufa and Basra came conquest, poetry, and rebellion; here Caliph Ali was murdered and his son Husayn martyred at Karbala, cleaving Islam into Sunni and Shia. Ruled uneasily from distant Damascus, Iraq seethed until it toppled the Umayyads. Slide across the first Islamic century.