The influences of the Sasanian and Byzantine systems on the Islamic systems during the era of Al-Rashideen Caliphate (11-40 AH / 632-661 AD)

Abstract

The era of the Rashdin “Rightly Guided” Caliphate is considered an important era in Islamic history because of  the expansion of Muslim power and conquests in different places. Muslims needed systems and how to run the state a lot in order to have  better  administration in the new places they had conquered.

The one thing that was more important is that the Muslims were able to benefit from the previous systems and civilizations because the regions they conquered were under the control of the authority of the two empires and the two great civilizations, the Sasanian and the Byzantine. Although the two empires had reached the fall of their lives and were weak in all respects. They had a long history in the experience of managing the state, which Muslims benefited from and used when they needed it to run their state. Therefore, Muslims in the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphate, specifically in the time of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab, benefited from the systems of the Sasanian and Byzantine empires, in particular they used the Diwan system under the influence of the Sasanian Empire, which had an important role in how to manage Muslims and their state. And not only for that era, but it had an important role and a great influence in later times. The bureaus were very broad, and they had the role of the ministries at the time. Even the Muslims in the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphate took from the two great empires how to manage wars, organize armies, and types of engineering and use them in exporting money and currencies.