Byzantine-Arab Wars
| Byzantine-Arab Wars | |||||||||
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| Part of the Muslim conquests | |||||||||
 Greek fire, first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Byzantine-Arab Wars. | |||||||||
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| Combatants | |||||||||
| Byzantine Empire[1], Arab Ghassanids, Bulgarian Empire (later) | Muslim Arabs (Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates) | ||||||||
| Byzantine-Arab Wars |
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| Mu'tah – Tabouk – Dathin – Ajnadayn – Yarmouk – Nikiou – 1st Siege of Constantinople – Syllaeum – That Al-Sawari – Carthage – Constantinople |
The Byzantine-Arab Wars was a long drawn-out war between the Byzantine Empire and the emerging Arab Empire. As result the Byzantines, called the Romans in Muslim historical chronicles, saw an extensive loss of territory during the war between the seventh and eigth centuries.
Howeverm, over time, the Arab conquests began to slow down. The Ninth century saw the loss of Sicily to the Arab forces and the Island of Crete was successfully defended against a Byzantine counter-attack in the tenth century. However, in the eleventh century, the Byzantines re-captured much territory, and under the emperor soldier Basil II, the Byzantines managed to take a large portion of Syria, including Aleppo and Antioch.
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Opening Conflict
The Byzantine Empire, under the Emperor Heraclius, had just come out of the exhausting Roman-Persian Wars prior to the Arabian conflict. The Arab conquest of the Levant and Persia began after the consolidation of the Arabian Peninsula under the Rashidun Caliphs during the Ridda wars that followed the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammed in 632. The Byzantine army composed of Imperial troops as well as local levies[1] engaged the Arab forces. Heraclius had fallen ill and was unable to lead his armies against during the Arab conquests of Syria and Palestine in 634. Following the Byzantine defeat in 636 at the Battle of Yarmouk, Heraclius who was at Antioch, is said to have declared:
"Farewell Syria, my fair province. Thou art an enemy's now"
Heraclius then left Antioch for Constantinople where he began to array his remaining forces for a defence of Egypt. Sequestering both Damascus and Jerusalem from the Byzantine Empire, the Muslim armies left Antioch to Byzantine control. By the time Heraclius died, much of the Roman province of Egypt had also been conquered by the Arabs, thereby depriving the Byzantines of their valuable corn supply and causing bread shortages throughout the Byzantine Empire. The Library of Alexandria, which had already suffered during the rule of the Western Roman Empire, was finally destroyed by 642, shortly after the Arab conquest.
Sieges of Constantinople
In 674 the Umayyad Caliph Muawiyah I, who had emerged as the ruling dynasty of the Arab empire following the civil war, besieged Constantinople under Constantine IV. In this battle, the Umayyads unable to breach the Theodosian Walls blockaded the city along the River Bosporus. The approach of winter however forced the besiegers to withraw to an island 80 miles away.
However, prior to the siege a Syrian Christian refugee named Kallinikos (Callinicus) of Heliopolis had recently invented for the Byzantine Empire a devastating new weapon that came to be known as "Greek fire". At the Battle of Syllaeum in 677, the Byzantine navy used this to decisely defeat the Umayyad navy in the Sea of Marmara and lift the siege in 678. This victory halted the Umayyad expansion towards Europe for almost thirty years.
The conflict came to a close during the reigns of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III the Isaurian and the Umayyad Caliph Umar II, after the Second Arab siege of Constantinople in (717-718), where the Arab ground forces, led by Maslama, were defeated by Constantinople's impregnable walls and the arrival of Bulgarian forces while their naval fleet was defeated by Greek Fire. The remnants of the Umayyad navy were subsequently sunk in a storm on its return home.
The conclusion of the war at this siege is often compared in significance to the later Battle of Tours, in the fact that it halted Muslim expansion into Europe from the East for almost 700 years.
Retardation
The conquests of the Arabs began to retard (note this is the opposite of accelerate). Attempts at taking Anatolia ultimately failed. Under the Macedonian emperor Basil I, the Byzantines were revived into a regional power, worthy of respect. However, the Arabs were successful in capturing Byzantines second largest city, Thessalonica, under the leadership of Thomas the Slav, although this was re-captured quickly by the Byzantines. Under the reign of Basil II, the Byzantines established a swath of new Themes stretching northeast from Aleppo (a Byzantine protectorate) to Manzikert.
Continuation
The Byzantine-Arab wars continued on for some time. The Arabs managed to seize the Islands of Crete and Sicily. However, Crete was re-taken by the Byzantines in 961 and by 1025, the Byzantine empire had defeated the forces of the emir's of Iraq, captured parts of northern mesopatamia, and conquered Antioch and Aleppo. Basil II put an end to the Arab threat against Byzantium forever.
Byzantine revival
The Byzantine empire did not suffer beyond recovery after the loss of Egypt and the Levant. Anatolia continued to remain in Byzantine hands and with its fairly fertile land and population, the Byzantines were able to raise a good strong enough army to repell the Arab invaders. Under the Macedonian dynasty, the Byzantines had a strong and unified leadership in comparison to the Abassid dynasty which was split into many factions.
After the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071, the Byzantines with Crusader help re-established their threatening position in the middle east as a superpower and an invasion of Egypt was planned in the twelfth century, which if successful, would have tipped the balance of power between the Christians and Muslims in favor of the Christians. The invasion mounted to little more than a raid and was cancelled
End game
The wars ended when the Turks and various other Mongolian invaders replaced the threat of either power. From the twelfth century onwards, the Byzantines were concentrating on fighting the Turks whilst the Arab forces where attempting to defend their lands against crusaders, Mongolian invasions, especially that of the Golden Horde and Timur.
The rise of the Ottoman empire replaced the threat of the Arabs to the Byzantines and then the threat of Byzantine to the Arabs was replaced by them, which can be clearly seen when the Ottomans captured Egypt in the sixteenth century.
See also
- Muslim conquests
- Aegyptus (Roman province)
- Muslim conquest of Egypt
- Muslim conquest of Syria
- Umayyad conquest of North Africa
- Battle of Tours
Footnotes
Sources
Categories
Islamic conquests | Wars of the Byzantine Empire | Battles of the Umayyad Caliphate