Early Muslim conquests
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests (Arabic: الْفُتُوحَاتُ الإسْلَامِيَّة, romanized: al-Futūḥāt al-ʾIslāmiyya), also known as the Arab conquests, were a series of religious wars initiated by Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and continued by the early Muslims. In 622, he established the first Islamic state at Medina in Arabia, from where Muslim armies expanded rapidly under the succeeding Rashidun Caliphate and then the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Islamic law being extended throughout most of West Asia and North Africa, parts of South Asia and Central Asia, and parts of Mediterranean Europe over the following century.