636–640]

Capitulation of Jerusalem

345

In the meantime, i.e. in the course of the years 636 and 637, Shuraḥbil and Yazid had finally occupied the remainder of the interior, and most of the towns on the coast. 'Amr was less fortunate, and invested Jerusalem in vain. The stubborn Caesarea also remained for a time closed to the Arabs. It is no matter of chance that just these two strongly Hellenised towns should have held out. Their resistance gives us a clue to explain the rapid successes of the Arabs. The military power of the Emperor was certainly broken, and he lacked both men and money; but it was of much greater moment that everywhere in Syria, where Semites dwelt, the Byzantine rule was so deeply hated that the Arabs were welcomed as deliverers, as soon as there was no need further to fear Heraclius. To cover his enormous debts Heraclius had been compelled to put on the fiscal screw to its utmost tension. In addition to this domestic pressure there was added that of religion; the church policy of Heraclius, the introduction of the Monotheletic Irenicon, became a persecution of Monophysites and Jews. In addition to this religious division there was now further the natural reaction of the Semitic element against the foreign rule of the Greeks. In the Muslims on the other hand the numerous Christian Arab tribes, and even the Aramaeans too, welcomed blood relations; the tribute moreover demanded by the Arabs was not heavy, and finally the Arabs permitted complete religious freedom; in fact, for political reasons, they rather encouraged heterodox tendencies. Thus, after the Arabs had vanquished the tyrants, the land fell peacefully into their own possession. The resistance of Jerusalem and Caesarea affords the test of this theory, for both of these towns were entirely Hellenic and orthodox. Even these towns however were unable to maintain their position for any length of time, and Jerusalem capitulated as early as 638; Caesarea did not fall until October 640 into the hands of Mu'awiya, and then only through treachery.

Even before the fall of Jerusalem the Caliph Omar had paid a visit to Syria. His appearance there was the result of the policy of occupation followed by Medina. The head-quarters of the Muslim army was at that time still at Jābiya, a little to the north of the Yarmuk battle-field. To this spot Omar summoned all his military commanders, presumably to support Abū ‘Ubaida in his difficult task with the authority of the Caliph. Apart from this however it was desired to lay down uniform principles for the treatment of the subjected peoples, i.e. to define the difficult problem which we of modern times call native policy. Further, the disposition of the money coming in and the whole administration needed an initial regulation, or rather sanction. Later tradition considers Omar the founder of the theoretical system of the ideal Muslim State, but incorrectly so, as will be shewn later. At the same time an initial regulation then certainly took place. On the termination of his work of reorganisation Omar visited Jerusalem,

346

First battles against Persia

[635-639 proceeding thence on his return journey to Medina. Abū 'Ubaida remained in the country as Omar's representative, but was not destined to remain in office much longer, for in the year 639, when many thousands from the ranks of the victors succumbed to a fearful epidemic of plague, Abū ‘Ubaida was also carried off by it, as was also his successor in office, Yazid, a short time later. Yazid's brother, Mu'awiya ibn Abī Sufyan, was then nominated to the succession by Omar, and in him the man appears at the head of Syria who was destined later in his own person to transfer the Caliphate to Damascus, a development which in its slow preparation is as clear as noonday.

The whole course of the Muslim expeditions in 'Irāk shews that the policy of the Caliphs was entirely determined by consideration for Syria. After the unfortunate battle of the Bridge not only the government but also the tribes were still more cautious towards 'Irāk expeditions. It was only the eager efforts of Muthanna, of the Bakr tribe, that finally succeeded in gaining the sanction of the Caliph to a new raid, and then only after the first conquest of Damascus. But there was a dearth of warriors; none cared much to proceed to Irāk, and it was only on the grant of special privileges that a few Yamanites consented to prepare for the march. In the meantime the Persians, who for over a year had not followed up their advantage in the battle of the Bridge, had crossed the Euphrates under Mihran; but Muthannā, with his auxiliaries from Medina, succeeded in defeating them at Buwaib (Oct. or Nov. 635). With his weak forces he could not however think of following up this small victory, and Omar at that time required all available troops for Syria, where the great army of Heraclius was advancing towards the battle of the Yarmuk. It was not until after this latter decisive victory that the Caliph paid greater attention to the 'Irāķ. Here also the first thing to be done was the despatch of a general representative, or vicegerent, for which position Sa'd ibn Abi Wakkaṣ was selected. To get the necessary troops however for an energetic attack was still attended with great difficulty. Sa'd took the whole of the winter 636-637 to assemble a few thousand men around him. Of the Arabian hordes, incited by religious enthusiasm, according to the customary European traditions, we can find but little trace.

In the meantime the Persians, alarmed by their own defeat at Buwaib, and still more by the terrible collapse of the Byzantine rule in Syria, decided to take energetic steps against the Arabs. The administrator of the kingdom, Rustam, assumed the command personally, and crossed the Euphrates. On the borders of the cultivated land, at Kādisiya, Sa'd and Rustam stood for a long time facing each other. Of the size of their respective armies we know nothing positive; the Arabs were certainly not more than 5-6000 strong, including Christians and heathens, and the numerical superiority of the Persians cannot have been considerable. More by chance than from any tactical initiative the two armies became

637-641]

Fall of Ctesiphon

347

engaged in combat, and in one day the Persian army was routed, and its leaders slain (May-June 637).

And now the fertile black land (Sawad) of Irāk lay open to the Arabs. Conditions exactly similar to those in Syria caused the Aramaic peasants to greet the Arabs as deliverers. Without meeting with any noteworthy opposition the Saracens pushed on as far as the Tigris, whither they were attracted by the rich treasures of the Persian capital Ctesiphon, or as the Arabs called it the "city-complex" or Madā'in. The right bank of the Tigris was abandoned and the floating bridges broken up. A ford having been disclosed to the Arabs the residue of the garrison followed in the wake of Yezdegerd and his court, who immediately after the battle had sought the protection of the Iranian mountains. The city opened its gates and fabulous booty fell into the hands of the Arabs, After a few weeks of quiet and no doubt somewhat barbaric enjoyment, they had again to make one more stand on the fringe of the mountains at Jalūlā; this also ended victoriously for them, and with that the whole of 'Irāk was thus in their hands. Here also it was no matter of chance that the expansion of the Arabs first came to a standstill at the mountains, where the line was drawn between the Semitic and the Aryan elements of the population. Only the province of Khūzistān, the ancient Elam, caused some trouble still. Hither the Arabs appear to have proceeded from the south of the marsh district, when the insignificant raids of the boundary tribes there, encouraged by Medina, assumed after the battle of Ķādisiya a more serious character, starting from the newly founded base at Başra. The chief seat of government was not placed at Ctesiphon, but, by express command of the Caliph, at Kufa (near Hira): and this was developed into a great Arabian military camp, intended to form the main citadel of Muslim Arabianism as against foreign Persian culture. Later the ancient Başra attained an independent position alongside of Kufa. The rivalry of the two places sets its impress both on the politics and on the intellectual life of the following century.

It was not until after these stupendous victories of Yarmūk and Kādisiya that the great Arabian migrations assumed their full development, for now even those tribes who were but little disposed to Islām were compelled to wander forth in order to seek their happiness in those cultivated lands which as rumour told them were only to be compared with Paradise itself. Now it was that the momentous change took place to which reference has been made at the outset; now it was that Islām no longer represented dependence on Medina, as it did in the time of Mahomet and Abu Bakr, but from this time forward it represented the ideal of the common universal empire of the Arabs. And at this stage the further expeditions became systematic conquests, in which usually whole tribes participated. A first step in this direction was to round off the empire, combining the Syrian and Irāk provinces by

348

Conquest of Persia

[641-652 the conquest of Mesopotamia. The expedition, begun from Syria as a starting-point, was completed from Irāk by the capture of Maușil (Mosul) (641).

A systematic conquest of this description was especially called for in regard to Irāk; for this province could not be regarded as secure as long as its recovery might be attempted. And at this juncture a strong reaction against the Arabs actually set in. The opposition which the Başrīs in Khūzistān met with, and which only ceased on the conquest of Tustar (641), was probably in connexion with the activity of the fleeing Yezdegerd and his followers, who summoned the whole of the Iranians to battle against the Arabs. The Bașris and troops from Kūfa had already co-operated systematically in Khūzistān, and similar tactics followed now on Persian soil, where the decisive battle was fought in the year 641 at Nihawand in the neighbourhood of the ancient Ekbatana. The Arabs gained a great victory; the dense garland of praise which legendary lore has woven around it shews how much depended for the Muslims on this victory. But even after this victory the Arabs were not yet masters of the great Median towns, as Hamadhan, Rayy and Ispahan; these were but slowly conquered during the next few years. Here in fact, where they were not greeted as deliverers by kindred Semites, the Arabs had to withstand a stubborn national opposition. Yezdegerd himself certainly caused them no difficulties; after the battle of Nihawand he had fled further and further away and had finally gone from Istakhr to Marw in Khorāsān. His satrap there was too narrowminded to support his fallen superior, and in fact he treated him as an enemy, and in 651-652 the deserted and unfortunate potentate appears to have been assassinated.

The Arabs did not reach Khorāsān until the province of Fārs, the actual Persia, was conquered. Fars could be reached most conveniently from the Persian Gulf. This expedition had therefore been undertaken, with Bahrain as starting-point, soon after the battle of Kadisiya. This made the third base of attack, together with Ctesiphon (Kūfa) and Başra, from which the Arabs pushed forward into Iran. Later on the conduct of this expedition passed into the hands of the troops coming from Başra. But also in Fars the same stubborn resistance was met with, which was not broken till after the conquest of Istakhr in the year 649-650 by 'Abdallah ibn 'Amir. Following this up ‘Abdallah, especially assisted by the Tamim and Bakr tribes, began in the following year an advance, the first successful one, towards Khorāsān. This first and incomplete conquest of Persia took therefore more than ten years, whilst Syria and ‘Irāk fell in an astonishingly short time into the hands of the Arabs. In Persia Arabianism has never become national, and, whilst a few centuries later the other countries spoke the Arabian tongue, the Persian vernacular and the national traditions were still maintained in Persia. The religion of Islām moreover underwent later in Persia a

631-640]

Egypt before the Conquest

349

development completely differing from the orthodox Islām. Even to-day Persia is the land of the Shi'a.

By reason of the great conquests in Syria and Irāk the capital, Medina, was no longer the centre of the new empire. Byzantine Egypt lay close by, and from Egypt a reconquest of Syria, even an attack on Medina itself, might be regarded as by no means impossible. Besides Alexandria the town of Klysma (Kulzum, Suez) appears to have been a strong naval port. Probably all Egypt was then an important base for the fleet of the Byzantines and one of their principal dockyards; for the Arabians of the earlier times it decidedly became such, and it appears not improbable that their conquest of Egypt was connected with the recognition that only the possession of a fleet would ensure the lasting retention of the new acquisitions, the Syrian coast towns, for instance. After the fruitless efforts to take Caesarea this recognition was a matter of course. Apart from this Egypt, a land rich in corn, must have been a more desirable land for the central government than the distant ‘Irāķ or Mesopotamia, for we find that soon after the conquest the growing needs of Medina were supplied by regular imports of corn from Egypt. It is therefore without doubt a non-historical conception, when an Arabian source represents Egypt as having been conquered against the wishes of the Caliph. The conquest of Egypt falls in a period during which the occupation of new territories was carried out systematically, instead of by the former more or less casual raids.

How much this undertaking was helped by the conditions in Egypt at the time was probably scarcely imagined in the Muslim camp. After the victories of Heraclius a strong Byzantine reaction had followed the Persian rule, which had lasted about ten years. Heraclius needed money, as we have already seen, and further, he hoped by means of a formula of union to put an end to the perpetual sectarian discord between the Monophysites and their opponents, and thereby to give to the reunited kingdom one sole church. But the parties were already too strongly embittered one against the other, and the religious division had already been connected so closely with the political that the Irenicon remained without effect. The Monophysite Egyptians probably never understood the proposed Monothelete compromise at all, and always thought that it was desired to force the hated Chalcedonian belief on them. It was certainly no apostle of peace who brought the Irenicon to the Egyptians, but a grand-inquisitor of the worst type. Soon after the re-occupation of Egypt Heraclius, in the autumn of 631, sent Cyrus, the former bishop of Phasis in the Caucasus, to Alexandria as Patriarch, and at the same. time as head of the entire civil administration. In a struggle extending over ten years this man sought by the severest means to convert the Coptic Church to the Irenicon; the Coptic form of worship was forbidden, and its priests and organisations were cruelly persecuted. As if that were not sufficient the same man, as a support of the financial