-- 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