Moslems II

[Gaius Octavius]

For me, the original 'Moslem' thread was very enlightening. I would like for it to continue - without discussing the religions themselves.

 

I believe Gibbon held that the Roman-Persian wars facilitated the spread of Islam, i.e, the Mohammedans ate away at both empires while they were occupied with each other. (That's really a question.) Although, I believe, that Egypt was in the Roman fold, the rest of North Africa was not. What made it so easy and fast for the Moslems to both conquer and convert Egypt and North Africa?

[Kosmo]

The war between romans and Persia was very long and hard. Most of the East was occupied by persians, including rich Syria and Egypt. They also reached Scutari on the asiatic side of Bosphorus. Roman positions in the Balkans were abandoned/lost and avars toghether with slavs besieged Byzantium (with their persian allies on the other side of the strait) Salonic was attacked repeatedtly and slaves reached S. Greece.

Romans delievered some serious blows to persians and forced them to make peace. Peace meant a long and confusing civil war between persians.

 

North Africa (Maghreb) was roman, especially the East (the exarhate of Carthage was the position that Heraclius used for his imperial bid) and the North seaside, with the inside areas held by bebers.

The romans and persians were at peace when arabs attacked both.

After the fall of Syria arabs had cut the roman land connection to Egypt. After Egypt fell they had a direct rute to attack Cartagina while romans had to rely on sea rute thru roman held S. Italy. After Cartagina fell the last roman cities further west were isolated with little sea connection but still fought. Probably visighots had some things to do as well.

The berbers made a strong resistance and arabs had to fight them 30-40 years.

Chronology after Wiki - Syria 635, Egypt 639-641, first real invasion in North Africa 665, reaching the Atlantic in 682, but romans fight beck, romans completely defeated up to 698. Berbers subdued 709.

Not a short fight between 665 and 709 for Maghreb.

Edited February 12, 2007 by Kosmo

[Julius Ratus]

The initial Moslem surge was the epitome of good timing. They had the element of supprise, no one expected that a puny, backwards tribe like the Arabs would ever ammount to anything. Then, when they did, the Byzantine Romans and Sassanid Persians were duking it out. Divide and Conquer.

[Northern Neil]

The fact that they left existing administrative structures intact made it possible to rapidly consolidate gains whilst moving on to the next conquest. Also, Egypt had long been a province which the Romans exploited rather than ruled thoughtfully. It got little back from the Empire, and I think that is why it capitulated almost immediately.

[Ursus]

Also, Egypt had long been a province which the Romans exploited rather than ruled thoughtfully. It got little back from the Empire, and I think that is why it capitulated almost immediately.

 

Agreed. I believe Islam, while it treated Christians as second class citizens by forcing them to pay a tax and wear a special dress, nonetheless granted Egyptian Christians more religious freedom than what Byzantium and its virulent dogma offered. And if Christians had to pay a tax under Islam, it was certainly no more (and probably a good deal less) than the drain their economy suffered from being Constantinople's bread basket.

[Rameses the Great]

It was the time of the Chalcedonian debate that made the Byzantines angry with the Egyptians. The taxes they had to pay to the Muslims, were harsh nonetheless.

[Kosmo]

I hear a lot about this egyptian sympathy with arabs, but there is little evidence. It seems that the orthodox patriarch of Alexandria helped them, or maybe he just tried to ensure the survival of his church. Those claims of conflict between Byzantium and egyptians are not proved. Did the monophisites helped the arabs?

With hindsight we know what happened, but for egyptians it was a surprise.

Arabs reduced the taxes and destroyed the upper class and this was good for ordinary citizens. Probably most of the arabs were vaguely muslim and christians did not feel threatened.

Before muslim conquest of 639 Egypt was conquered by persians and held for 10 years (619-629). This for sure weakened roman rule.

Also, as we discussed before, civilian population of the roman empire could do little against an invader. They hed no military equipment, training, organistaion and leadership.

After the first arab conquest romans had to attack from the sea and this was a seriuos problem.

[DecimusCaesar]

I believe Caliph Umar was lucky that the Persians were so weakend. Afterall, he had launched a two-pronged attack against both the Persian and Roman Empires. The Sassanids were defeated easily considering the damage that Heraclius and his armies had caused them. This gave Umar's second army the chance to head back from Mesopotamia and join up with Umar's main force. Heraclius mistake was to stake everything on a single battle, that of Yarmuk in 636, where the entire Byzantine army he had assembled was destroyed.

 

As for the taxes, I believe that in the newly conquered provinces the native inhabitants had to pay less tax than they had under the Romans. One of the main reasons for this was that they were now supporting Nomad warriors instead of a professional army. I believe when Caliph Umar was presented with the tax money, his advisors had to explain to him what 500,000 gold coins were, since he had no concept of such a high number. The administrators at Medina had never encountered such wealth before.

Another reason the Muslims managed to pacify their new holdings was that they put a stop to the fighting between the Christian groups (Arians, Nestorians, Monophysites) which came as relief to many, considering that whichever group was the most dominant would persecute the others.

[Gaius Octavius]

Another question. Were the Christian populations converted or displaced by the Arabs? If displaced, where did they go? Something tells me that a different answer will apply to different areas.

[DecimusCaesar]

I believe that Umayyad tax policy played a part in converting some people. When the Arabs/Muslims had settled into their territories they began taxing the 'People of the Book' (Christians/Jews) much more heavily than they had done in the past. This caused many Christians in Muslim territories to convert to Islam in order to recieve less taxes. So it worked rather well.

[Rameses the Great]

Those who did not pay the taxes and refused to convert were killed.

[Kosmo]

A nice description of the process of conversion here at subchapter 4

http://libro.uca.edu/ics/emspain.htm

Local factors influenced the speed of the process.

[Ludovicus]

In regard to relations between the Byzantine Empire and the Arabs, there is an article posted on the JSTOR site entitled:

The Relations between Byzantium and the Arabs: Report on the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium of 1963

Hamilton A. R. Gibb

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 18, 1964 (1964), pp. 363-365

doi:10.2307/1291220

 

You can read the first page of the article but you'll need a subscription to go further.

 

 

 

There is an account of an Arabian embassy in Constantinople:

 

"The description in the Book of Ceremonies of a reception for an Arabian embassy, that was held there in 946, suggests that the Magnaura was not basilical in shape, as this has usually been assumed, but rather a cross-in-square building with a dome, possibly as the result of Justinian's reconstruction."

 

The above is from the website: http://www.byzantium1200.com/senato.html

[docoflove1974]

Another question. Were the Christian populations converted or displaced by the Arabs? If displaced, where did they go? Something tells me that a different answer will apply to different areas.

 

I can't speak for other areas of the Roman Empire, but in post-Empire Iberia, after the fall of the Gothic kings in 711, and with the massive wave of Moors who conquered, there was a relatively 'tolerant' position taken by the Moors and Caliphate in Cordoba. Ibero-Romance peoples were able to keep their culture, religion, and customs at will...however, if they wanted to climb the social ladder, they would be wise to morph into Islamic ways. In fact, linguistically there's a very rich area of 'mozarabes'--those Ibero-Romance peoples who took on Arabic/Moorish customs, names, and even language...but remained Christian. Their language appears in jarchas--Mozarabe poetry, often of love, rebellion or saddness, which is written in Middle Arabic or Hebrew, save for the last 2 stanzas. These last 2 stanzas are written in Arabic or Hebrew script, but are actually Ibero-Romance. The Mozarabes were bilingual and bicultural, by all discussions that I know.

 

Now, this is all taken from two linguistics sources: Rafael LaPesa's Historia de la lengua espa

[Kosmo]

I can't speak for other areas of the Roman Empire, but in post-Empire Iberia, after the fall of the Gothic kings in 711, and with the massive wave of Moors who conquered, there was a relatively 'tolerant' position taken by the Moors and Caliphate in Cordoba.

 

This was the policy at the begining, but around 850 christians started a public policy of affirming their beliefs and that led to martyrdom. Gradually all christians were either converted or emigrated to the christian kingdoms and christianity dissapeared in arab Spain.