18. BYZANTIUM AND THE RISE OF ISLAM

After struggling long and hard with the Persians, Herakleios seemed finally to have rescued the empire from disaster. Within a few years, however, nearly all of the gains he made had been lost, swept away by the advance of the Arabs. This sudden change, which included the destruction of Sassanid Persia, is difficult to explain, but of crucial importance. Together with the Slavic migrations, which took place at nearly the same time, the Arab conquests changed the ethnic make-up of the eastern Mediterranean world.

A. Muhhamed and the Rise of Islam

1. For centuries the Arab tribes had been important as a buffer between Byzantium and the Persians, but they had generally been outside the civilized circles of both powers.

a. The Arabs had served as foederati for Byzantium along the eastern frontier.

b. Some Arabs even settled down and became Christians

c. Nevertheless, the cultural center of the Arab tribes lay deep in the Arabian peninsula, where they preserved their traditions of fierce individualism and oral poetry.

d. Most Arabs were thus pagans who practiced a kind of animism.

2. Sometime around A.D. 610 Muhammed began to have religious experiences, which were ultimately recorded in the Qu'ran.

a. Islam accepted the historical validity of Judaism and Christianity, but saw the revelations of Muhammed as the final stage in the plan of God.

b. Central to Islam is the idea that Allah (God) alone is god; strict monotheism.

c. Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammed were the prophets of Allah.

3. In A.D. 622 Muhammed made his great migration (the hijrah) and the conversion of the Arabs to Islam began; this date is accepted by Muslims as the beginning of the Islamic era (A.H. dates).

4. At first Muhammed opposed the spread of Islam by force, but he later came to accept this idea.

a. It was forbidden to make war on other Muslims.

b. Non-believers could (indeed, should) be attacked and brought within the sphere of Islam, but "people of the book" (i.e., Jews and Christians) were to be tolerated.

c. Non-Muslims were, however, to pay heavy taxes to support the Muslim state.

d. This is the basis of the distinction between the Dar-al-Islam and the Dar al-Harb (the "House of Islam" and the "House of War"), an idea which postulated continuous warfare between Muslims and those areas not yet controlled by Islam.

5. Muhammed perceived no distinction between secular and religious institutions and rules.

a. Qu'ran was to be the basis of law governing all Muslim areas.

b. Muhammed was both a political and a religious leader.

6. The Prophet died in A.D. 632 and there was considerable controversy about appointing a successor.

a. Utlimately it was decided to appoint a successor (khalipha, caliph) who would be both political and religious leader of the Islamic community.

b. Nevertheless, there was much controversy about the succession and this led to an important schism within Islam (Suni and Shiite communities).

B. The Beginning of Conquest

1. Muhammed himself was apparently not particularly concerned about the conversion or conquest of non-Arabs, and conquest outside the peninsula did not begin until after his death.

2. The first conquests took place under the caliphs Abu Bakr (632-34) and Omar (634-44).

a. The first serious Arab attacks on Byzantine territory took place in 633- 34.

b. The general Yazid defeated the Byzantine commander Sergios at Gaza.

c. Byzantine forces were then commanded by Theodore, the brother of Herakleios, who was then in Antioch.

d. Damascus fell in 635.

e. After the Battle of the Yarmuk in 636 all of Syria and Palestine lay open to the Arabs.

f. Most of the cities of Syria and Palestine surrendered without a struggle, especially since the Arabs promised not to sack any city that did not offer resistance.

g. Jerusalem, defended by the orthodox patriarch Sophronios, held out until 637.

3. The conquest of Egypt began in 641 and was complete by 642.

C. The Reasons for the Arab Success

1. It is probably useful to distinguish between those factors which weakened the Byzantines (and the Persians) and those which strengthened the Arabs or made them want to leave the Arabian peninsula.

2. Many historians have said that the conquests were caused simply by the religious zeal of the Arabs, who because fanatic Muslims, all willing to die for the spread of Islam; this is highly questionable.

3. It is likely that the earliest attacks on Byzantine and Persian territory were simple razzias, traditional Arab raids.

a. The razzia had been part of the economic basis of Arabia for centuries.

b. Islam forbade armed attacks on other Muslims, so the Arabs turned their attention to non-Muslims.

c. In Persia and Byzantium they encountered little opposition.

4. The long war between Persia and Byzantium (from about 602 to 628) exhausted both sides.

a. Many of the most productive areas of both states were overrun and burned during the course of the war.

b. The psychological strain of the Arab attacks, so soon after the great war, with Persia must not be discounted.

5. It is difficult to evaluate the importance of Monophysite dissatisfaction in the Arab successes.

6. Some scholars have argued that the Arabian peninsula was progressively drying up during this period, forcing the Arabs to move into the surrounding territories.

7. Many scholars now are arguing that the Roman world suffered a significant crisis about the middle of the sixth century, as a result of plague and perhaps the overspending of Justinian, and that it was in serious decline already, well before the appearance of the Arabs.

D. Suggested Reading:

Bosworth, C.E., The Arabs, Byzantium, and Iran: Studies in Early Islamic History and Culture.  Brookfield, VT, 1996.

Canard, M., “Byzantium and the Muslim World to the Middle of the Eleventh Century,” in Cambridge Medieval History 4.1 (1966).  Second Edition.

Cook, M., Muhammad.  Oxford 1983.

Crone, P., Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam.  Oxford 1987.

Crone, P., and M. Cook, Hagarism: the Making of the Islamic World.  Cambridge 1977.

Donner, F., The Early Islamic Conquests.  Princeton, NJ, 1981.

Encyclopaedia of Islam.  New Edition.  Leiden 1960.

Humphreys, R.S., Islamic History: a Framework for Inquiry.  Revised Edition.  London 1991.

Kaegi, W., “Heraclius and the Arabs,” in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 27 (1982), 109-133.

Kaegi, W., Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests.  Cambridge 1992.

Kennedy, H., The Prophet and the Age of the Caliphates: the Islamic Near East from the Sixth to the Eleventh Century.  London 1986.

Meyendorff, J., “Byzantine Views of Islam,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964), 113-32.

Miles, G.C., “Byzantium and the Arabs.  Relations in Crete and the Aegean Area,” in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964), 1-32.

Shahîd, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century.  Washington, D.C., 1984.

Shahîd, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century.  Washington, D.C., 1989.

Shahîd, I., Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century.  Washington, D.C., 1995.

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