Muslim conquest of Syria

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The Muslim conquest of Syria occurred in the first half of the 7th century, and refers to the region known as the Bilad al-Sham, the Levant, or Greater Syria. Arab forces had appeared on the southern borders even before the death of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad in 632, such as the Battle of Mu'tah in 629, but the real invasion began in 634 under his successors, the Rashidun Caliphs Abu Bakr and Umar ibn Khattab, with Khalid ibn al-Walid as its most important military leader.

Byzantine Syria

Syria had been under Roman rule for seven centuries prior to the Arab conquest and had been invaded by the Sassanid Persians on a number of occasions during the third, sixth and seventh centuries; it had also been subject to raids by the Sassanids Arab allies the Lakhmids. During the last of the Roman-Persian Wars, beginning in 603, the Persians under Khosrau II had succeeded in occupying Syria, Palestine and Egypt for over a decade before being forced by the victories of Heraclius to make peace in 628 and withdraw from these provinces. Thus, on the eve of the Muslim conquests the Romans were still in the process of rebuilding their authority in these territories, which in some areas had been lost to them for almost twenty years.

The Conquest under Umar

The first territorial conquests were made under Khalid ibn al-Walid in Umar's reign; Damascus in 635. Damascus, and Jerusalem - considered by Muslims, Christians, and Jews alike to be a holy city - in 637. In 635 Damascus surrendered, its inhabitants being promised security for their lives, property, and churches, on payment of a poll tax; the Jizya. A counterattack by Roman Emperor Heraclius forced the Arabs to abandon Jerusalem and Damascus, though the Romans were soon defeated at the Battle of the Yarmuk River in 636. Damascus and Jerusalem was re-occupied and by 640 the conquest was virtually complete.

Syriac Christian Views

Islamicist historians tend to claim that Monophysites welcomed the Arab invasions, however these claims are primarily based on Arabic Muslim sources and sometimes Syriac literature of later writers that base these claims on assumed reactions to Byzantine persecution. However, the only surviving Syriac texts from the 7th century are all hostile towards Arabs, contradicting later Syriac and Arab literature.

When the Arabs heard of the festival which took place at the monastery of S. Simeon the Stylite in the region of Antioch, they appeared there and took captive a large number of men and women and innumerable boys and girls. The Christians who were left no longer knew what to believe. Some of them said "Why does God allow this to happen?

Arab Administration

The new rulers divided Syria into four districts (junds): Damascus, Hims, Jordan, and Palestine (to which a fifth, Kinnasrin, was later added) and the Arab garrisons were kept apart in camps, and life went on much as before for the local population. Conversion to Islam was limited to the Arab tribes already settled in Syria; except for the tribe of Ghassan. The Muslim's adopted policy of tolerance towards other religions, resulting in a positive effect on the new subject people, especially the Christians Nestorian and Jacobite Christians and Jews (People of the Book), who had been previously persecuted under Byzantine rule. The loyalty of his new subjects was paramount to the success of Muslim rule in the region, therefore excessive taxation or oppression was avoided. The taxes instituted were the kharaj - a tax that landowners and peasants paid according to the productivity of their fields - as well as the jizya - paid by non-Muslims in return for protection under the Muslim state and exemption from military service. The Byzantine civil service was retained until a new system could be instituted; therefore, Greek remained the administrative language in the new Muslim territories for over 50 years after the conquests.

Umar was also engaged upon creating a buffer zone around all of Arabian Peninsula, the birthplace of Islam, and so while Syria was being captured to the west, Muslim forces were also heading east and engaging the Sassanid Empire there. After the Islamic conquest of Persia the Muslims were able to resume the offensive against the Byzantines by pushing into Aegyptus (Roman province).

under the Umayyad dynasty that came to power following the Muslim civil war

The Conquest under Uthman

While Uthman ibn Affan did not expand the Arab Empire to the same degree as Umar, his armies thwarted the Byzantine attempt to reconquer Byzantine North Africa. In 639 he named his cousin, Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria and commissioned the construction of a Muslim fleet to guard the Mediterranean against Byzantine naval attacks. These newly developed naval capabilities helped in the subsequent conquest of the island of Cyprus in 649.

The Rise of the Umayyads

When the first civil war broke out in the Muslim empire, as a result of the murder of 'Uthman and the nomination of 'Ali as caliph, Mu'awiyah used his base in Damascus to extended his authority over neighbouring provinces and was proclaimed caliph in 660. He was the first of the Umayyad line, which ruled the empire, with Syria as its core and Damascus its capital, for the next century.

Footnotes

References

Charles, R. H. The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu: Translated from Zotenberg's Ethiopic Text, 1916. Reprinted 2007. Evolution Publishing, ISBN 978-1-889758-87-9.

External links

Multimedia History Tutorials by the Applied History Group, The Islamic World to 1600 , University of Calgary.
Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Chapter 51
Bishop John NIkiou The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu Chapters CXVI-CXXI

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