Muslim conquests
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Arab Muslim conquests (632–732), (Arabic: فتح, Fatah, literally opening,) also referred to as the Islamic conquests or Arab conquests,[1] began after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He established a new unified political polity in the Arabian peninsula which under the subsequent Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates saw a century of rapid expansion of Arab power well beyond the Arabian peninsula in the form of a vast Muslim Arab Empire with an area of influence that stretched from northwest India, across Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, southern Italy, and the Iberian Peninsula, to the Pyrenees. Edward Gibbon writes in History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
"Under the last of the Ommiades, the Arabian empire extended two hundred days’ journey from east to west, from the confines of Tartary and India to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. And if we retrench the sleeve of the robe, as it is styled by their writers, the long and narrow province of march of a caravan. We should vainly seek the indissoluble union and easy obedience that pervaded the government of Augustus and the Antonines; but the progress of Islam diffused over this ample space a general resemblance of manners and opinions. The language and laws of the Qu'ran were studied with equal devotion at Samarcand and Seville: the Moor and the Indian embraced as countrymen and brothers in the pilgrimage of Mecca; and the Arabian language was adopted as the popular idiom in all the provinces to the westward of the Tigris."
The Arab conquests brought about the collapse of the Sassanian Empire and a great territorial loss for the Byzantine Empire. Though spectacular, the Arab successes are not hard to understand in hindsight. The Sassanid Persian and Byzantine empires were militarily exhausted from decades of fighting one another. This prevented them from dealing effectively with the mobile Arab raiders operating from the desert. Moreover, many of the peoples living under the rule of these empires, for example Jews and Christians in Persia and Monophysites in Syria, were disloyal and sometimes even welcomed the Arab invaders, largely because of religious conflict in both empires.[2]
History
The individual Arabian conquests, together with their beginning and ending dates, are as follows:
Byzantine-Arab Wars: 634-750
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- Further information: Khalid ibn al-Walid and Amr ibn al-A'as
The Byzantine-Arab Wars were between the Byzantine Empire and at first the Rashidun and then the Umayyad caliphates and resulted in the conquest of the Bilad al-Sham (Levant), Misr (Aegyptus), Ifriqiya (Mediterranean North Africa) and Armenia (Byzantine Armenia and Sassanid Armenia).
Under the Rashidun
- The conquest of Syria, 637
- The conquest of Armenia, 639
- The conquest of Egypt, 639
- The conquest of North Africa, 652
Under the Umayyads
- The conquest of North Africa, 665
- The second Arab siege of Constantinople 717-718
- The conquest of Tbilisi, 736
Later conquests
- The conquest of southern Italy, 827
Frontier warfare continued in the form of cross border raids between the Ummayyads and the Byzantine Isaurian dynasty allied with the Khazars across Asia Minor. Byzantine naval dominance and Greek fire resulted in a major victory at the Battle of Akroinon (739); one of a series of military failures of the Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik across the empire that checked the expansion of the Umayyads and hastened their fall.
Conquest of Persia: 633-651
- Further information: Khalid ibn al-Walid
In the reign of Yazdegerd III, the last Sassanid ruler of the Persian Empire, a Muslim army secured the conquest of Persia after their decisive defeats of the Sassanid army at the Battle of Walaja in 633 and Battle of al-Qādisiyyah in 636, but the final military victory didn't come until 642 when the Persian army was destroyed at the Battle of Nihawānd. Then, in 651, Yazdgird III was murdered at Merv, ending the dynasty. His son Pirooz escaped through the Pamir Mountains in what is now Tajikistan and arrived in Tang China.
Conquest of Transoxiana: 662-709
- Further information: Qutaibah bin Muslim and History of Arabs in Afghanistan
Following the First Fitna, the Umayyads resumed the push to capture Sassanid lands and began to move towards the conquest of lands east and north of the plateau towards Khorasan and the Silk route along Transoxiana. Following the collapse of the Sassanids, these regions had fallen under the sway of local Iranian and Turkic tribes as well as the Tang dynasty. By 709, however, all of Greater Khorasan and Sogdiana had come under Arab control. By 751, the Arabs had extended their influence further east to the borders of China, leading to the Battle of Talas.
Conquest of Sindh: 664-712
- Further information: Muhammad bin Qasim
During the period of early Rajput supremacy in north India, during the seventh, the first Muslim invasions were carried out simultaneously with the expansion towards Central Asia. In 664, forces led by Al Muhallab ibn Abi Suffrah began launching raids from Persia, striking Multan in the southern Punjab in what is today Pakistan.
In 711, an expedition led by Muhammad bin Qasim defeated Raja Dahir at what is now Hyderabad in Sindh and established Umayyad rule by 712. Qasim subdued the whole of what is modern Pakistan, from Karachi to Kashmir, reaching the borders of Kashmir within three years. After his recall, however, the region devolved into the semi-independent Arab ruled states of Mansura and Multan.
Conquest of Hispania: 711-718
- Further information: Tariq ibn-Ziyad
The conquest of the Iberian Peninsula commenced when the Moors (mostly Berbers with some Arabs) invaded Visigothic Christian Iberia (modern Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar, Andorra) in the year 711.[3] Under their Berber leader, Tariq ibn Ziyad, they landed at Gibraltar on April 30 and worked their way northward.[4] Tariq's forces were joined the next year by those of his superior, Musa ibn Nusair. During the eight-year campaign most of the Iberian Peninsula was brought under Islamic rule—save for small areas in the northwest (Asturias) and largely Basque regions in the Pyrenees. This territory, under the Arab name Al-Andalus, became first an Emirate and then an independent Umayyad Caliphate after the overthrowing of the dynasty in Damascus by the Abbasids. When the Caliphate dissolved in 1031, the territory split into small Taifas, and gradually the Christian kingdoms started the Reconquest up to 1492, when Granada, the last kingdom of Al-Ándalus fell under the Catholic Kings.
Conquest of the Caucasus: 711-750
End of the Umayyad conquests: 718-750
The success of the Bulgarian Empire and the Byzantine Empire in dispelling the second Umayyad siege of Constantinople halted further conquests of Asia Minor in 718. After their success in overrunning the Iberian peninsula, the Umayyads had moved northeast over the Pyrenees where they were defeated 721 at the Battle of Toulouse and then at the Battle of Covadonga. A second invasion was stopped by the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours in 732 and then at the Battle of the River Berre checking the Umayyad expansion at Narbonne. In 738, the Umayyad armies were defeated by the Indian Rajputs at the Battle of Rajasthan, checking the eastern expansion of the empire. In 740, the Berber Revolt weakened Umayyad ability to launch any further expeditions and, after the Abbasid overthrow in 756 at Cordoba, a separate Arab state was established on the Iberian peninsula, even as the Muhallabids were unable to keep Ifriqiya from political fragmentation.
In the east, internal revolts and local dissent led to the downfall of the Umayyad dynasty. This military expansion era extended the military boundaries of the Islamic world in the pursuit of wealth garnered from booty. The Khariji and Zaidi revolts coupled with mawali dissatisfaction as second class citizens in respect to Arabs created the support base necessary for the Abbasid revolt in 750. The Abbasids were soon involved in numerous Shia revolts and the breakaway of Ifriqiya from the Caliph's authority completely in the case of the Idrisids and Rustamids and nominally under the Aghlabids, under whom muslim rule was extended temporarily to Sicily and mainland Italy before being overrun by the competing Fatimids. The Abbasid caliph, even as he competed for authority with the Fatimid Caliph, also had to devolve greater power to the increasing power of regional rulers. This began the process of fragmentation that soon gave rise to numerous local ruling dynasties who would contend for territory with each other and eventually establish kingdoms and empires and push the boundaries of the muslim world on their own authority, giving rise to Mameluke and Turkic dynasties such as the Seljuks, Khwarezmshahs and the Ayyubids who fought the crusades, as well as the Ghaznavids and Ghorids who conquered India.
In Iberia, Charles Martel's son, Pippin the Younger, retook Narbonne, and his grandson Charlemagne actually established the Marca Hispanica across the Pyrenees in part of what today is Catalonia, reconquering Girona in 785 and Barcelona in 801. This formed a permanent buffer zone against Muslims, with Frankish strongholds in Iberia (the Carolingian Empire Spanish Marches), which became the basis, along with the King of Asturias for the Reconquista, spanning 700 year which after the fall of the Caliphate of Cordoba contested with both the successor taifas as well as the African-based Muslim empires, such as the Almoravids and Almohads, until all of the Muslims were expelled from the Iberian peninsula.
Conquest of Nubia: 700-1606
After many attempts at military conquest of Nubia (in the North of modern day Sudan) failed, the Arab commander in Egypt concluded the first in a series of regularly renewed treaties known as AlBaqt (pactum) with the Nubians that governed relations between the two peoples for more than six hundred years.
Islam progressed peacefully in the area through intermarriage and contacts with Arab merchants and settlers over a long period of time after the failure of military conquest. In 1315, a Muslim prince of Nubian royal blood ascended the throne of Dunqulah as king.
During the fifteenth century, the Funj, an indigenous people appeared in southern Nubia and established the Kingdom of Sinnar, also known as As-Saltana az-Zarqa (the Black Sultanate). The kingdom officially converted to Islam in 1523 and by 1606 it had supplanted the old Christian kingdom of Alwa (Alodia) and controlled an area spreading over the Northern and Central regions of modern day Sudan thereby becoming the first Islamic Kingdom in Sudan. Their kingdom lasted until 1821.
Incursions into Southern Italy: 831-902
The Aghlabids rulers of Ifriqiya under the Abbasids, using present day Tunisia as their launching pad conquered Palermo in 831, Messina in 842, Enna in 859, Syracuse in 878, Catania in 900 and the final Byzantine stronghold, the fortress of Taormina, in 902 setting up emirates in the Italian peninsula. In 846 the Aghlabids sacked Rome.
Berber and Tulunid rebellions quickly led to the rise of the Fatimids taking over Aghlabid territory and Calabria was soon lost to the Byzantine Catapanate of Italy. The Kalbid dynasty administered the Emirate of Sicily for the Fatimids by proxy from 948. By 1053 the dynasty died out in a dynastic struggle and interference from the Berber Zirids of Ifriqiya led to its break down into small fiefdoms which were captured by the Italo-Normans by 1091.
Conquest of Anatolia: 1060-1360
The later Abbasid period saw initial expansion and the capture of Crete (840). The Abbasids soon shifted their attention towards the East. During the later fragmentation of the Abbasid rule and the rise of their Shiite rivals the Fatimids and Buyids, a resurgent Byzantium recaptured Crete and Cilicia in 961, Cyprus in 965, and pushed into the Levant by 975. The Byzantines successfully contested with the Fatimids for influence in the region until the arrival of the Seljuk Turks who first allied with the Abbasids and then ruled as the de facto rulers.
In 1068 Alp Arslan and allied Turkmen tribes recaptured many Abbasid lands and even invaded Byzantine regions, pushing further into eastern and central Anatolia after a major victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. The disintegration of the Seljuk dynasty, the first unified Turkic dynasty, resulted in the rise of subsequent, smaller, rival Turkic kingdoms such as the Danishmends, the Sultanate of Rum, and various Atabegs who contested the control of the region during the Crusades and incrementally expanded across Anatolia until the rise of the Ottoman Empire.
Byzantine-Ottoman Wars: 1299-1453
Further conquests: 1200-1800
- Further information: Ottoman wars in Europe
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the Sahelian kingdom expanded Muslim territories far from the coast. Muslim traders spread Islam to kingdoms across Zanj along the east African coast, and to Southeast Asia and the sultanates of Southeast Asia such as those of Mataram and Sulu.
After the Mongol Empire destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate, after the Battle of Baghdad (1258), they conquered Muslim lands but soon converted to Islam, beginning an era of Turkic and Mongol expansions of Muslim rule into Eastern Europe under the Golden Horde; across Central Asia under Timur, founder of the Timurid dynasty; and later into the Indian subcontinent under his descendant Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. Meanwhile in the 17th century, Barbary pirates were conducting raids into Western and Northern Europe, as far as Britain and Iceland.[5][6] Eastern Europe suffered a series of Tatar invasions, the goal of which was to loot, pillage and capture slaves into jasyr.[7]
The modern era saw the rise of three powerful Muslim empires: the Ottoman Empire of the Middle East and Europe, the Safavid Empire of Persia and Central Asia, and the Mughal Empire of India; along with their contest and fall to the rise of the colonial powers of Europe.
Decline and collapse: 1800-1924
The Mughal Empire declined in 1707 after the death of Aurangzeb and was officially abolished by the British after the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Safavid Empire ended with the death of its last ruler Ismail III who ruled from 1750 until his death in 1760. The last surviving Muslim empire, the Ottoman Empire, collapsed in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I. On March 3rd 1924, the institution of the Caliphate was constitutionally abolished by President Mustafa Kemal Atatürk as part of his reforms.
See also
- Caliph
- Jihad
- Ridda wars
- Suleiman the Magnificent
- Islamic Golden Age
- Timeline of the Muslim presence in the Iberian peninsula
- Timeline of the Tataro-Mongol Yoke in Russia
- List of Ottoman sieges and landings
- List of wars in the Muslim world
Notes
- ↑ Martin Sicker (2000), The Islamic World in Ascendancy: From the Arab Conquests to the Siege of Vienna, 'Praeger.
- ↑ Barbara H. Rosenwein, A Short History of the Middle Ages, (Ontario, 2004), p. 71-72.
- ↑ Medieval Sourcebook: Ibn Abd-el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain
- ↑ Spain The conquest, Encyclopædia Britannica
- ↑ Bernard Lewis (1993), Islam and the West, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0195090616.
- ↑ Bernard Lewis (1990), "Europe and Islam", The Tanner Lectures on Human Values, at Brasenose College, Oxford University.
- ↑ Supply of Slaves
References
- Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Chapter 51
- Fred Donner, The Early Islamic Conquests Chapter 6
- Hugh Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live in (2007) ISBN 0306815850