Arab–Byzantine wars
The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between a number of Muslim Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 11th century. Conflict started during the initial Muslim conquests, under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs, in the 7th century and continued by their successors until the mid-11th century.
| Muslim–Byzantine wars | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Muslim conquests | |||||
Greek fire, first used by the Byzantine Navy during the Arab–Byzantine wars | |||||
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| Belligerents | |||||
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Byzantine Empire Bulgarian Empire Mardaites Armenian principalities Kingdom of Italy Italian city-states |
Rashidun Caliphate Umayyad Caliphate Abbasid Caliphate Aghlabid Emirate of Abbasids Emirate of Sicily Emirate of Bari Emirate of Crete Hamdanids Fatimid Caliphate Mirdasids | ||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||
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Heraclius Theodore Trithyrius † Gregory the Patrician † Vahan † Niketas the Persian † Constans II Constantine IV Justinian II Leontius Heraclius Constantine V Leo V the Armenian Michael Lachanodrakon Tatzates Irene of Athens Nikephoros I Theophilos Manuel the Armenian Niketas Ooryphas Himerios John Kourkouas Bardas Phokas the Elder Nikephoros II Phokas Leo Phokas the Younger John I Tzimiskes Michael Bourtzes Basil II Nikephoros Ouranos George Maniakes Tervel of Bulgaria |
Zayd ibn Harithah † Ja'far ibn Abī Tālib † Khalid ibn al-Walid Ikrimah ibn Abi-Jahl 'Abd Allah ibn Rawahah † Abu Bakr Umar Uthman Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah Shurahbil ibn Hasana 'Amr ibn al-'As Yazid ibn Abu Sufyan Abdullah ibn Saad Abdallah ibn Qais Muawiyah I Yazid I Muhammad ibn Marwan Ubayd Allah ibn Marwan Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik Hassan ibn al-Nu'man Al-Abbas ibn al-Walid Abdallah al-Battal Ali ibn Yahya al-Armani † Mu'awiyah ibn Hisham Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik al-Mahdi Harun al-Rashid Abd al-Malik ibn Salih Al-Ma'mun Al-Abbas ibn al-Ma'mun Al-Mu'tasim al-Wathiq al-Mutawakkil Asad ibn al-Furat † Ibrahim II of Ifriqiya Leo of Tripoli (MIA) Umar al-Aqta † Sayf al-Dawla Al-Aziz Billah Manjutakin | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
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8,000 in Bosra 50,000 at Yarmouk ~7,000 at Hazir 10,000+ at Iron Bridge |
300 at Dathin 130 in Bosra 3,000 at Yarmouk ~100,000 at Constantinople ~250-500 ships at Constantinople | ||||
| 4,000 civilian deaths at Dathin | |||||
The emergence of Muslim Arabs from Arabia in the 630s resulted in the rapid loss of Byzantium's southern provinces (Syria and Egypt) to the Arab Caliphate. Over the next fifty years, under the Umayyad caliphs, the Arabs would launch repeated raids into still-Byzantine Asia Minor, twice besiege the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, and conquer the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa. The situation did not stabilize until after the failure of the Second Arab Siege of Constantinople in 718, when the Taurus Mountains on the eastern rim of Asia Minor became established as the mutual, heavily fortified and largely depopulated frontier. Under the Abbasid Empire, relations became more normal, with embassies exchanged and even periods of truce, but conflict remained the norm, with almost annual raids and counter-raids, sponsored either by the Abbasid government or by local rulers, well into the 10th century.
During the first centuries, the Byzantines were usually on the defensive, and avoided open field battles, preferring to retreat to their fortified strongholds. Only after 740 did they begin to launch raids in an attempt to combat the Arabs and take back the lands they had lost, but the Abbasid Empire was able to retaliate with often massive and destructive invasions of Asia Minor. The Arabs also took to the sea, and from the 650s on, the entire Mediterranean Sea became a battleground, with raids and counter-raids being launched against islands and the coastal settlements. Arab raids reached a peak in the 9th and early 10th centuries, after the conquests of Crete, Malta and Sicily, with their fleets reaching the coasts of France, Dalmatia, and Constantinople.
With the decline and fragmentation of the Abbasid state after 861 and the concurrent strengthening of the Byzantine Empire under the Macedonian dynasty, the tide gradually turned. Over a period of fifty years from c. 920 to 976, the Byzantines finally broke through the Arab defences and restored their control over northern Syria and Greater Armenia. The last century of the Arab–Byzantine wars was dominated by frontier conflicts with the Fatimids in Syria, but the border remained stable until the appearance of a new people, the Seljuk Turks, after 1060.