User:Al Ameer son/Muslim conquest of Syria

Background

Course

Despite the often contradictory early Islamic narratives of the conquest, the historian Fred Donner deemed it "possible to reconstruct the broad outlines" of the war. The course of the conquest is generally divided into three main phases.

Initial invasion

With the tribes of Arabia brought under Medina's control, Abu Bakr prepared and dispatched armies for the conquest of Byzantine Syria. The first of these armies was probably that of Khalid ibn Sa'id ibn al-As, an early companion of Muhammad and member of the Umayya. He was shortly after dismissed at the instigation of Umar for having opposed Abu Bakr's succession, with one set of early Muslim accounts placing this dismissal before his departure from Medina and the other once he reached the Tayma oasis on the approaches to Syria. At Tayma, he was supposedly reinforced with troops led by al-Walid ibn Uqba, engaged with Arab allies of the Byzantines, and was defeated.

In Rajab 12 AH (September 633) or the beginning of 13 AH (Spring 634), Abu Bakr dispatched three or four armies to Syria led respectively by one of Muhammad's commanders, Amr ibn al-As, Abu Sufyan's son Yazid, the Ridda veteran and early companion of Muhammad, Shurahbil ibn Hasana, and a leading companion of Muhammad and close ally of Abu Bakr and Umar, Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah. The timing and order of each commander's deployment and whether they were independent of each other or if any held the high command at this stage is not clear. Each army took a separate route toward Syria. Amr embarked on the coastal road to Ayla before breaking northwest into the Negev Desert and toward Gaza. The other commanders took the road through Tabuk, with Shurahbil stopping in the area east of the Arabah Valley, Yazid terminating in the Balqa region east of the Dead Sea, and Abu Ubayda taking up position in the Golan Heights area.

The first encounter between the Muslims and Byzantines occurred at Dathin and Badan, near Gaza, where negotiations between Amr and the local Byzantine garrison commander broke down and gave way to a skirmish ending with Amr's defeat of the local garrison. While of minor consequence, news of the Arabs' victory at Dathin alerted the Byzantines to the entry of Muslim forces into Syria. Amr afterward set up headquarters at Ghamr al-Arabat, a location in the middle of the Arabah Valley. Credible details of the other commanders' activities is sparse, but a lieutenant of Abu Ubayda may have gained the surrender of a town called Ma'ab in the Balqa, Yazid may have succeeded against a Byzantine force in a minor clash in Palestine and Shurahbil oversaw activity against the pro-Byzantine Quda'a tribal group in his area of operations.

Donner concludes that the operations in this phase of the Muslim campaigns, where urban centers and major agricultural areas were avoided, targeted the territories inhabited by nomadic and partly settled Arab tribes. Kennedy comments that at this point, "the Muslim attacks on Syria had amounted to little more than pinpricks along the frontiers". The goal of the Muslim state was probably to continue the process of subjugating all Arab tribes, which Medina had consistently viewed as posing threats to its power. Once the bulk of the tribes were under Muslim control, the Muslims could launch the major assaults against Syria's main armies and cities.

Rout of Byzantine main armies

See also: Khalid ibn al-Walid § March to Syria

Battles of Ajnadayn and Fahl

Main articles: Battle of Ajnadayn and Battle of Fahl

In the spring of 634, the prominent Ridda veteran commander Khalid ibn al-Walid was directed by Abu Bakr to leave his campaigning in the desert frontier of Iraq and join the Muslim armies in Syria. He embarked on an unconventional march across the Syrian Desert, including six days through a waterless trek. He managed the trek by increasing his camels' water intake, sealing their mouths to prevent them from eating, and slaughtering them for water as needed by his troops. He bested pro-Byzantine Arabs from the Bahra tribe in the vicinity of Palmyra. Afterward, on 24 April 634, he landed upon a group of pro-Byzantine Ghassanid Arabs celebrating Easter at the Marj Rahit meadow north of Damascus. His troops proceeded to raid the Ghouta gardens around the city before rendezvousing with Muslim forces positioned near Bosra, the capital of Arabia Province and a center of trade in the Hauran region south of Damascus which historically provided the nomadic Arabs with oil, wine and grain. Khalid was appointed to the supreme command of the Muslim armies in Syria by Abu Bakr or the Muslim commanders already present.

The Muslims besieged and captured Bosra in May, facing token resistance by its defenders. The city surrendered in a pact obliging its inhabitants to pay an annual poll tax, the jizya. Khalid and the other commanders moved to join Amr ibn al-As in southern Palestine to help him counter a large number of Byzantine troops mobilized against him. The ensuing Battle of Ajnadayn, fought at a site in the Wadi al-Simt valley southwest of Jerusalem, was the first major confrontation between the Muslims and the Byzantines. The two sides incurred significant losses, including several prominent Muslims and the Byzantine cubicularius, but the battle ended with the Byzantines routed. The battle is variously dated to July 634 or January 635. In the aftermath of Ajnadayn, Amr captured several towns in the interior of Palestine, including Sebastia, Nablus (Neapolis), Lydda, Yibna, Amwas (Emmaus-Nicopolis), Bayt Jibrin (Eleutheropolis) and Jaffa. Most of these towns fell after minor resistance, hence the scant information available about their captures in the sources.

Remnants of the Byzantines from Ajnadayn regrouped to the northeast, in Pella (Fahl in Arabic), a town with a Byzantine garrison on the eastern bank of the River Jordan, across from Scythopolis (Beisan in Arabic). The Muslims pursued them there, encountering difficulty traversing the muddy grounds around Beisan with their horses, a result of floods from the breaking of the river banks by the Byzantines. The Muslims defeated the Byzantines, who incurred heavy casualties, at the Battle of Fahl and occupied the city in December 634 or January 635. They may have engaged with Byzantine troops in another battle at Marj al-Suffar, south of Damascus, in which the Muslims suffered heavy losses but drove the Byzantines off nonetheless. Marj al-Suffar is dated variously to March 635 or before Fahl, in July 634.

Siege of Damascus

Main article: Siege of Damascus (634)

The Kaysan Gate, one of six gates of Damascus besieged by the commanders of the Muslim armies in Syria

From Fahl, the Muslims marched on Damascus, where the Byzantines there were joined by their comrades from the previous battles with the Muslims. They were under the command of Vahan. All the Muslim commanders participated in the siege of Damascus, each posted to one of the city's five gates, while a sixth unit was positioned at the village of Barzeh to intercept Byzantine reinforcements from the north. After a lengthy siege, Damascus capitulated in August or September 635. Although they disagree in the identities of the commanders, most of the Muslim accounts agree that Muslim forces breached one of the city gates, while on another side of the city, the local leaders opened a gate after negotiations with a different Muslim unit. The Muslim commanders ultimately met in the city center where they drafted a capitulation agreement with the inhabitants. Muslim forces proceeded to capture Baalbek and then, after a months-long siege, occupied Homs in December 635 or January 636.

Battle of Yarmouk

Main article: Battle of the Yarmuk

Heraclius, who had been observing events from his base in Antioch, responded to the string of Muslim victories and occupations of major cities by mobilizing a massive force of Byzantine imperial troops, local garrisons from Antioch, Aleppo, Chalcis, Mesopotamia, Armenians under their commander Gregory, and Syrian Arab tribesmen under the Ghassanid chief Jabala ibn Ayham. The overall command of the Byzantines was held by the sacellarius and Vahan. This force's march south prompted the Muslims to abandon Homs, Baalbek and Damascus and regroup at Jabiya in the Golan Heights. The Byzantines took up position nearby, along the Ruqqad river, prompting the Muslims to set up camp at the adjoining Yarmouk River. This hilly area straddled the borders of four Byzantine provinces and served as the main pasture grounds for the Ghassanids.

As the Byzantines advanced, the Muslims feigned retreat, inducing the Byzantines to assault the Muslims' camp at Dayr Ayyub. This left the Byzantines' left flank vulnerable and Muslim forces used the wide gap and poor coordination between the Byzantine cavalry and infantry to inflict heavy casualties on the latter. Byzantine forces subsequently fled for safety to a site between the Ruqqad and Allan streams, but the site's only viable exit, the bridge over the Ruqqad, was captured in a night raid by Khalid's cavalry. The Muslims afterward assaulted the Byzantines' encampments between the two streams and at the village of Yaqusa on the edge of the Golan, where most of the Byzantine troops were slain, though many Arab Christian auxiliaries had deserted by that point.

Occupation of Syria

The Muslim victory at Yarmouk destroyed the main Byzantine army in Syria and ended the Byzantines' will to confront the Muslims on the field. It sealed Muslim gains in Palestine and Transjordan and paved the way to their quick reoccupation of Damascus and the Beqaa Valley. As they no longer had to confront Byzantine standing armies, the Muslim army in Syria split into smaller forces and proceeded to occupy Syria's cities. In this phase of the conquest, the main resistance against the Muslims were Byzantine garrisons and local militias.

Conquest of the north

The Roman road between the northern Syrian cities of Antioch and Qinnasrin, which the Muslims captured in c. 637

Probably after Yarmuk, Khalid was replaced by Abu Ubayda as the overall commander of the Muslim forces in Syria, with Khalid becoming one of his lieutenant commanders. Abu Ubayda and his lieutenants besieged and recaptured Homs, making it the base of operations for the conquest of northern Syria. Abu Ubayda and/or his lieutenants proceeded to capture Qinnasrin (Chalcis), Aleppo and Antioch from their defenders in relatively quick succession.

The accounts about events in northern Syria are especially divergent. Heraclius may have deployed a force under a general, Minas, which was defeated by the Muslims in the plain between Aleppo and Qinnasrin, before or after the Muslims' capture of those cities. A Byzantine army, swelled by conscripts from several cities in Upper Mesopotamia, may have besieged Homs, prompting Abu Ubayda to recall his lieutenants and their armies in the north to buttress the defense of the city. As other Muslim forces proceeded east against the cities of Upper Mesopotamia, the troops from those areas abandoned the siege to defend their hometowns. Khalid then bested the remaining besiegers. The Muslims suppressed rebellions in Antioch and Qinnasrin. As northern Syria, including the area east toward the Euphrates, was conquered, Heraclius abandoned his base in Edessa for Samosata and eventually Constantinople. During his withdrawal to the capital, Heraclius disbanded the garrisons, which largely consisted of local farmers, and forts in the mountainous region between Tarsus and Alexandretta so that incoming Muslim troops encountered a deserted countryside.

Siege of Jerusalem

Abu Ubayda, while still retaining the command of Muslim troops in the north, may have played a less active role in operations there as he left to lead the siege of Jerusalem in late 636 or early 637. Already following Ajnadayn, an advance force was sent against the city by Amr and its environs, including Bethlehem, were in Muslim hands, as indicated by a sermon of Patriarch Sophronius of Jerusalem. The actual siege was overseen by Abu Ubayda and several of the top Muslim commanders played a role.

The siege lasted for months as Jerusalem's defenders refused to capitulate except to the caliph Umar. The latter is generally held by the Islamic tradition to have visited the troops at their main camp at Jabiya at least once, around 637. From there, he negotiated with Jerusalem's representatives the capitulation treaty. In exchange for control of the city, the withdrawal of Byzantine troops, and the inhabitants' payment of the jizya, the inhabitants' lives, churches and properties would be spared.

Fall of coastal holdouts

Ruins of Caesarea Maritima, capital of Byzantine Palestine and one of the last cities in Syria to fall to the Muslims

The coastlands of Syria, especially northern Syria and the Phoenician coast, were the last areas to submit to the Muslims. The port cities were captured by different armies and withstood sieges for longer due to the Byzantines' domination of the sea. The besieged garrisons were thus easily reinforced and resupplied, while cities captured by the Muslims were subject to Byzantine naval raids. In Palestine, Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan's brother Mu'awiya led the years-long sieges of Caesarea and Asqalan, which surrendered between 639 and 641. Yazid and Mu'awiya also led the sieges and captures of Sidon, Beirut, and Byblos. A lieutenant of Abu Ubayda, Ubada ibn al-Samit, led the raids that captured Tartus and Latakia. One of the last coastal cities to fall was Tripoli, which was captured during Caliph Uthman's reign in 644. With the exception of Caesarea, the coastal cities were relatively minor operations by smaller detachments under lower-ranking commanders.

Plague of Amwas and reorganization of Muslim armies

Main article: Plague of Amwas

Conquest of the Jazira

See also: Al-Jazira (caliphal province) and Iyad ibn Ghanm

Impact

Administrative

Main article: Bilad al-Sham

Political

See also: Umayyad Caliphate

Bibliography

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