Byzantine Anatolia quickly became the target of Muslim expeditions after
the Byzantine evacuation of Syria and northern Mesopotamia in the midseventh
century. Muslim historical traditions disagree on who led the
earliest Arab raids through the mountain passes into Anatolia and the
‘land of the Romans’. Ibn ‘Abd al-Hakam’s Futuh misr reports the earliest
Muslim expedition against Amorion in 644 (AH 23), when Constans II
was still too young to be capable of developing his polity’s defences.11
These early raids penetrated deep into Byzantine territory. Mu‘awiya had
already commanded an incursion into Asia Minor in 643, and he probably
led another expedition against Amorion in 646. His expeditions
disrupted the Anatolian interior, forcing the Byzantines into defensive
countermeasures.
The antecedents of later Muslim warfare and diplomacy can be traced
back toMu‘awiya’s governorship of Syria, and to the period after he became
caliph in 661.12 Summer raids (saifa) began from around 640. The raids of
the 640s were often launched from Mesopotamian and Syrian towns such
as Homs and Antioch, and the raiders entered Anatolia by way of passes
such as the one at Hadath (between Germanikeia and Melitene) and the
Cilician Gates (using bases such as Mopsuestia and Tarsus once these were
in Arab hands). Whether or not Mu‘awiya himself went on the important
early expedition against Amorion in 644,13 he led a number of other campaigns
into Anatolia at a time when Byzantine resistance was beginning
to harden. As Constans II tried to fortify Byzantine cities and strongholds
and to develop a coherent resistance, Mu‘awiya gained experience in how
to fight and to negotiate with the Byzantines, becoming familiar with the
problems and challenges of their Anatolian terrain, climate and logistics.
Probably no other caliph had as much personal military experience against
the Byzantines as Mu‘awiya did.
Despite this, Mu‘awiya’s offensives against Byzantium did not result in
any lasting Muslim conquests in Anatolia between 643 and his death in
680.Muslim raids became an almost annual event, penetrating up to 1,000
kilometres into the Anatolian plateau. They were not restricted to summer,
and a winter raid would sometimes follow hard upon a summer one.14 The
raids contributed toMu‘awiya’s prestige, helping to enrich theMuslims and
attracting ever more tribesmen to take part, while the Muslim casualties
probably remained relatively modest. However, this persistent raiding seriously
damaged the empire’s infrastructure: the Byzantines’ territories were
devastated; they lost property and human lives; many were taken captive;
and their commerce and agriculture were destroyed. The raids also kept
Byzantium off-balance, forcing them onto the defensive and preventing
them from launching major offensives of their own against Muslim Syria.
Under Mu‘awiya’s able command, the Muslims were innovative and
capable of taking their opponents by surprise. Despite a lack of any Arab
seafaring tradition, they embarked on combined land and naval operations,
highlighting their readiness to adopt new strategies and techniques
of warfare. Although the literary evidence about naval expeditions against
Byzantine-controlled islands such as Arwad and Rhodes is contradictory
and impossible to verify, epigraphic evidence confirms an intensification
of Muslim military and naval activities, including devastating Muslim
raids on Byzantine Cyprus in 649 and 650 at Soloi.15 Some 120,000 Cypriots
are said to have been deported, marking a serious change in the island’s
fortunes. Although the Byzantines did receive forewarning of the Arabs’
preparations for some of these naval expeditions, the raids further reduced
Byzantine resources and naval capabilities in the Mediterranean, jeopardising
yet more of the empire’s coastline and islands. Muslim power was
proving capable of extracting financial concessions from regions hitherto
beyond its reach.
In 654 or 655, Mu‘awiya’s naval forces decisively defeated Constans II at
the battle of Phoenix off the south-western Anatolian coast, also known
as the ‘battle of the masts’. The late seventh-century ascetic Anastasius of
Sinai testified to the shock of this Byzantine naval defeat.16 Ibn Abi Sarh,
governor of Egypt, commanded the Arab fleet, and its crew members may
have included many Christian Egyptians. The Muslims then mounted
a threatening but brief and abortive combined land-and-sea operation,
reaching almost to Constantinople itself.17 The seventh-century Muslim
naval offensives culminated in their costly and disastrous assault and naval
blockade of Constantinople from 674 to 678. The Arabs failed to plan
adequately and they also encountered a new Byzantine weapon, Greek fire,
which devastated their warships and inflicted heavy casualties (see above,
p. 233).
Mu‘awiya’s governorship of Syria and his caliphate extended Arab territorial
control, with Cyprus and most of Armenia falling underMuslim influence.
The period of Mu‘awiya’s ascendancy also saw larger-scale expansion
inNorth Africa, asMuslim military pressure on Anatolia reduced theByzantine
government’s ability to reinforce and defend vulnerable positions in
the empire’s western approaches.Mu‘awiya’s prestige derived from his military
victories; from the fact that he received recognition from the Byzantine
emperor; from his control of the holy places of Christianity and Islam; from
the line of successors from the ProphetMuhammad; and also from the messianic
attributes of his leadership. His aggressive, risky and unpredictable
strategies challenged a number of arrogant assumptions of the Byzantines
about the Arabs: as with their earlier stereotypes about the Persians, they
assumed that the Arabs could not fight in cold weather and instead
became lethargic.18 Muslim winter expeditions into Anatolia brought
home to the Byzantines just how wrong their notions about Muslim
warfare could be. Winter campaigns were costly to both sides; it was gambling
with the lives of Muslim soldiers to keep them in such a totally
hostile environment for long periods, but they unquestionably disrupted
the Byzantines’ way of life in Asia Minor and kept them on the defensive.
So why did rapid Muslim expansion not continue northwards under
Mu‘awiya, in the wake of the extraordinary early successes? Although no
explicit treatise outlining Mu‘awiya’s strategy exists, the failure does not
seem to lie in flawed tactics, nor can it be put down to Byzantine policy or
military victories. The harsh Anatolian climate and terrain played their part,
as did the sheer logistical complexity of mounting lengthy, long-distance
raids into the interior. The Muslims encountered tougher resistance, the
closer they penetrated to the rather more ethnically and religiously homogeneous
core areas of the empire; there could be no realistic expectation
of winning over many converts to Islam there. Resources for potential
Arab expansion were also squandered on the ill-fated naval siege of Constantinople
itself (see above, pp. 232–3) and, above all, on the first and
secondMuslim civil wars.Muslim leaders started to see the sense in exploring
temporary arrangements with the Byzantines, rather than engaging in
perpetual warfare.
Another complication worked to the Byzantines’ advantage and helps
to explain the caliphate’s reluctance and inability to provide whole-hearted
commitment to invading and fully subjugating Anatolia: the Arab incursions
were frequently undermined by rivalry and envy among their leaders.
One of the most daring Muslim commanders, Khalid bin al-Walid, was
much admired ‘because of his usefulness to the Muslims in Byzantine territory,
as well as his bravery’.19 However, his fame and success appeared to
threaten other military leaders, and the caliph himself allegedly contrived
al-Walid’s poisoning in 666/7, on his return to Homs after a raid into
Anatolia: Mu‘awiya feared his growing prestige among other Syrian Arabs.
Although al-Walid’s death may perhaps signal other problems, including
tensions betweenMuslims and Christians atHoms, the reports of his death
there highlight the rivalries and tensions among Muslim commanders.
As Byzantine intelligence on Muslim strategy and tactics improved, so
did their response to Muslim aggression. Byzantine resistance began to
take shape, notably during the reign of Constans II, who inherited sole
rule at the age of eleven in 641.20 Constans faced various hurdles, including
factional and dynastic infighting, the need to justify his authority and policies,
and internal military strife.21 Yet his military and diplomatic activities
in Anatolia between 641 and 663, and in the central and western Mediterranean
between 663 and his assassination in Syracuse in 668, present us
with something of a riddle.
The last memories of military victories – especially in the east – were
those of Constans II’s grandfather,Heraclius, who had personally risked his
life and reputation in campaigning, even if his efforts against the Muslims
had failed catastrophically. Constanswent out on campaign in Armenia and
in Anatolia, and this pleased his troops. His Armenian campaign of 652/3
was an unsuccessful attempt to restore his claim to authority, faced with
the prospect of the Armenians becoming clients of the caliph, although
virtually no Armenian conversions to Islam took place at this time (see
above, p. 342). The emperor’s presence in person was needed to make the
military system work, as would still be the case many hundreds of years
later.22 This obviated the risk of disobedience or incompetence on the part
of his commanders, but it was not always practicably possible.
Echoes of earlierHeraclian accusations of betrayal resound in the accusations
made by Constans II’s courtiers’ against Maximus the Confessor and
PopeMartin I (649–55).23 It was difficult for his officials to explainByzantine
disasters at Arab hands. Heraclius and Constans both resorted to public
accusations, ridicule and the denunciation of those whom they charged
with harming the empire and the dynasty. When Constans received a letter
from Caliph ‘Uthman (644–56), summoning him to Islam and proposing
that he become the caliph’s subject, his reaction was to have it deposited on
the altar of St Sophia and to invoke a passage from Isaiah.24 Here Constans
acted as both head of state and mediator to the deity.
Constans II ruled at a time when the balance of military power between
empire and caliphate was fundamentally unfavourable to the former and
when a Byzantine collapse was not out of the question. This obliged him to
enter into diplomatic relations with theMuslims in the form of embassies.25
In 650 theMuslim commander Busr bin Abi Artat led a raid into Isauria and
netted 5,000 prisoners. Constans requested and received a two- or threeyear
truce in return for his payment of tribute. However, with the impact
of the Arab conquests of Syria, Palestine, Egypt and upper Mesopotamia
still reverberating in imperial circles, Constantinople remained highly suspicious
of anyone who made – or who was in a position to make – unauthorised,
local contacts with Muslims, whether commander or churchman.26
The imperial administration was equally suspicious of anyone who dissented
from imperial policy, whether civil or religious, and Constans II’s
attempts to censure PopeMartin I for unauthorised contacts with the Arabs
are comparable with those of his grandfatherHeraclius: he, too, had tried to
prevent unapproved negotiations between local leaders and Muslim commanders.
By the ninth century, however, it would be impractical to enforce
such rigid policies along the border.
Although not providing the only explanation, the fitnas were as important
a factor in theMuslims’ inability to crush the Byzantine empire in the
Umayyad period as was Byzantine institutional restructuring.27 The first
Muslim fitna, fought betweenMu‘awiya and ‘Ali, son-in-law of the prophet
Muhammad, from 656 to 661, forced Mu‘awiya to purchase an expensive
temporary peace with Byzantium in 657,28 and he had to keep this until his
decisive victory over ‘Ali in 661 or 662.Only then wasMu‘awiya free to turn
his and his armies’ attention to the situation on the northern approaches
of Syria, although even then the Kharijite rebellion remained a formidable
problem for them.
According to Ibn Sa‘d’s Kitab al-tabaqat al-kabir, a Muslim army first
established its winter quarters in Anatolia, ‘in the land of the Romans’ (’ard
al-R¯um) in 662/3,29 but Ibn Sa‘d does not identify the expedition’s leaders,
the number of raiders or their provenance, nor exactly where they wintered.
Arab winterings in Byzantine Anatolia were more perilous for local life and
disruptive to agriculture than were their summer raids. But they were also
risky for the Arabs,30 for they prompted the Byzantines to strengthen their
defences in Asia Minor.31 It is noteworthy that the earliest references to
some form of thematic units in Byzantine Anatolia occur only a few years
after the initial Muslim winterings there, whether or not these units as yet
had any of the social or economic ties with particular areas that they would
eventually form (see above, pp. 239–41, 266–7).
The campaign theatre of Anatolia does not seem to have been a priority
for the early Muslim historians. Those records which do survive come
from Iraq, an area from which relatively few raids into Anatolia originated,
because of the formidable logistical hurdles such as distance, heat and supplies.
32 We have no source-material comparable to the extensive narratives
on other regions; this may simply not have survived, or details of the Anatolian
conquests were either unavailable, or deemed unworthy of historical
attention by al-Tabari and other later historians.33 The brevity of allusions
in the extant Muslim histories to seventh-century raids into Anatolia may
well owe at least something to the following considerations. Firstly, many
raids started out from Homs or points further north, where there were
few Muslim scholars in the mid- and late-seventh century. The surviving
raiders were probably often some distance away from historical writers or
their copyists who might have been in a position to record information
about them and pass it on to later generations. Secondly, in Syria, Egypt,
Iraq and Africa there eventually arose issues of tax and property rights
which, although they might contaminate the source-materials, at least gave
reason to put on record details about relations with the local inhabitants.
There was no such incentive in the case of Anatolia, for it had not been
conquered by the Muslims. A third possible reason for the lack of sourcematerial
on the early Anatolian raids is that the motive for recording such
expeditions was the pious commemoration of the names of participants,
including those who perished, partly so as to add fame and distinction to
their families, groups and clans back in Syria, Iraq and even in Egypt. But all
that was needed for this purpose was the lists of their names and the dates –
whether accurate or not – for those events. A fourth and final possible
reason for the dearth of Muslim source-material about the early raids into
Anatolia may be that it concentrates so heavily on the house of Mu‘awiya,
the Umayyad caliph, celebrating its feats.34
The cessation of the first fitna was not the only factor behindMu‘awiya’s
adoption of a more active approach towards Byzantine Anatolia.35 Another
likely catalyst was Constans II’s departure for Italy and Sicily in 662/3 in
an attempt to strengthen military defences in the west: this coincided with
the ending of the fitna and the release of extensiveMuslim resources – both
human and material – for offensives against the empire.36 The date for
the first Muslim wintering was neither accidental nor random.37 Although
the military situation in Anatolia worsened for the Byzantines after 663,
the Arabs failed to establish any permanent base north of the Taurus mountains.
Indeed, the series of Muslim raids from that time onwards could
even be seen as indirectly attesting the overall effectiveness of the Byzantine
defensive system. However awkward the Muslim winter campaigns
made the situation for the Byzantines in Anatolia, the raids were, from the
Byzantines’ point of view, preferable to irreparable Muslim conquest.
If Constans’ move westwards offered the Arabs an opportunity, the fates
of Asia Minor and the more distant Mediterranean were now more closely
intertwined. Exchanges betweenDamascus and Constantinople intensified
during the mid- to late seventh century, and Muslim officials and military
commanders were not infrequently switched between Anatolia and North
Africa. To take just one example, Fadhala bin ‘Ubayd was transferred from
campaigning in the east to join Ruwayfi bin Thabit al-’Ansari in the major
raid on the North African island of Jerba; this raid probably occurred in
677/8.38
Constans II lacked the skills that Heraclius had shown in exploiting his
domestic and Persian enemies’ internal strife, and it was internal discord
that ultimately overwhelmed Constans and led to his murder. He also
lacked his grandfather’s skills in identifying external enemies’ weak points
and then applying pressure to them, and he did not have his sense of timing
in battle: Constans was able neither to divide theMuslims, nor to decapitate
or neutralise their leadership.
World History
