Sasanian Empire wins the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah

To be honest, I'm not sure the Sassanids were in good shape even if they defeat the Muslims at Al-Qadisiyyah. Any empire that collapses so quickly as the Sassanids did must have been rotten to some extent in its core. Certainly after the death of Khusrau II the empire experienced a protracted period of instability which led to the accession of an 8-year old boy to the throne of the Empire. And it's not like the Arabs hadn't been defeated before by the Persians (the Battle of the Bridge). My guess is after al-Qadisiyyah they'd just try again after a few years, this time with a better general like Khalid ibn al-Walid or something.
 
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To be honest, I'm not sure the Sassanids were in good shape even if they defeat the Muslims at Al-Qadisiyyah. Any empire that collapses so quickly as the Sassanids did must have been rotten to some extent in its core. Certainly after the death of Khusrau II the empire experienced a protracted period of instability which led to the accession of an 8-year old boy to the throne of the Empire. And it's not like the Arabs had been defeated before by the Persians (the Battle of the Bridge). My guess is after al-Qadisiyyah they'd just try again after a few years, this time with a better general like Khalid ibn al-Walid or something.

I'm fairly certain that one of the people running the country was killed in the battle. That's usually enough to throw a medieval era nation into chaos. Keep him alive and the nation might keep going along just fine. It might completely fall apart when he does die, who knows, but a decent leader can hold things together for a while.
 
To be honest, I'm not sure the Sassanids were in good shape even if they defeat the Muslims at Al-Qadisiyyah. Any empire that collapses so quickly as the Sassanids did must have been rotten to some extent in its core. Certainly after the death of Khusrau II the empire experienced a protracted period of instability which led to the accession of an 8-year old boy to the throne of the Empire. And it's not like the Arabs had been defeated before by the Persians (the Battle of the Bridge). My guess is after al-Qadisiyyah they'd just try again after a few years, this time with a better general like Khalid ibn al-Walid or something.

Pretty much this.
And why do some posters on this thread assume the Byzantines would ally with the Persians in a cooperative campaign against the Arabs?
 
Because historically they did?

No verified Heraclian cooperation with the Persians, that Ive heard of. Only joint Byzantine /Persian military action that I know of involved action against another faction of Sassanids.
As for the supposed coalition at the battle of Firaz, the sources seem to be Muslim Arab and very exaggerated and propagandistic and much written a century or so after the fact as with much of the exploits of Khalid. I'm skeptical that any local cooperation was anything more than at the discretion and initiative of a local commander and not State policy.
 
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