The tribes deeper in the Arabian Desert did not necessarily share the cozy relationship between the Byzantines and the semi-nomads close to Syria. Inter-Arab rivalries, such as the one between the ‘‘northern’’ and ‘‘southern’’ tribes (descriptions that have no basis in the relative geographical distribution of these tribes), played a key role in undermining the Ghassanids, especially once the latter had been deprived of Byzantine support. With the rise of the Prophet Muhammad, the years following ad 629 were ones in which the fledgling Muslim community sought to expand its influence northward along the series of oasis caravan stops (Fadak, Khaybar, Dumat al-Jandal, etc.) that lead along the Hijaz up to Syria. This expansion was redoubled after the conquest of Mecca in ad 630, especially as a result of the conversion of the Umayyad family (closely related to Muhammad, but until that time his primary foes), which had traditional commercial ties to Syria.
These commercial ties were now linked together with the Islamic veneration for Jerusalem (the first direction for Muslim prayer) and insured that the Byzantines, who had recently reconquered Syria-Palestine from the Persians, would be attacked by the Muslims. There are other reasons for this attack, which commenced in ad 633, among them the fact that the usual pattern of intertribal raiding was banned by the appearance of Islam. There may have been other religious reasons for this attack as well, including possibly the feeling that the Byzantines (Romans) were responsible for the destruction of the Second Temple and the murder of the prophets (Jesus and John the Baptist) and should be made to answer for these actions.
For whatever reasons, the Byzantines were ill-equipped to repel the Muslim attack, small though it was. Having gone through the Byzantine-Sasanian war (ad 602-28), which effectively bled both empires white, and having previously canceled its alliance with the Ghassanids, which led to disaffection among the Arabs of Syria, the empire was at its weakest in ad 633. It had not had the opportunity to rebuild the defenses of the region of southern Syria-Palestine, or to reforge the alliances with local, Christian Arab tribes that could have defeated the Muslims.
Unfortunately, the sources concerning the Muslim conquest of Syria-Palestine (like many of the sources for early Islam) are so problematic and contradictory that it is difficult to establish the basic course of events. Nor do non-Muslim sources clarify the events to the extent we could wish, and there are apparently no surviving contemporary accounts of the conquest from either Muslims or non-Muslims. These facts open up the possibility that the Muslim accounts, which are designed to augment the fame of various personalities or tribes, or to prove that the conquest demonstrates the truth of Islam, are all unreliable. Scholars of Islamic history have not yet resolved this problem.
In the Muslim sources, we have initial probes by local Muslims by ad 633, designed mainly to achieve domination over the local Arab population, then the arrival of the noted commander Khalid b. al-Walid in ad 634 (Donner 1981: 112-27). Khalid almost immediately pushed the conquest forward, capturing Damascus in ad 635 after a series of battles in present-day northern Jordan (Ajnadayn, Fihl, etc.). The Byzantines returned, however, and reoccupied Damascus, chasing the Muslims to Yarmuk (on the present-day border between Syria and Jordan) where the former were decisively defeated in ad 636. During the next five years, the Muslims occupied most of Syria, up to the area of Antioch. Jerusalem was captured in ad 636, and the coast-lands were reduced by sieges during the years that followed.
For the most part, the Muslims in Syria during this period (and part of the Ummayad period that followed it) organized themselves along tribal lines and had their centers close to, but not inside, the major cities. The Arab centers close to Damascus - Jabiya (the old capital of the Ghassanids), Harasta, and Dariya (al-Khawlani 1989: 52-60) - were the major power base; but others existed in the region of the northern Negev (Lecker) and in the town of Hims (Emesa), which was the hub for conquest to the north. Ghassan, however, fell from importance, and the major tribes during the Umayyad period were Kalb (which had inhabited the desert to the east of Damascus) and Tanukh (which had formerly been the Byzantines’ federate tribe). Throughout the early Umayyad period, these tribes were probably at least partially Christian, their full conversion to Islam being delayed until the beginning of the eighth century.
The northern region close to Hims became the hotbed for southern tribesmen who emigrated there in large numbers and stayed to fight the Byzantines (Madelung 1986). It is in this region, and further to the north in Antioch, that we find so much of the borderland ethos that was to become important in the development of the doctrine of jihad. During the latter part of the seventh century, the Byzantines (especially under Justinian II, ad 685-95 and 705-14) mounted a still mysterious guerrilla campaign using the Mardaites-Jarajima (Chalhoub 1999). These peoples, or groups, occupied the area of the northern Amanus Mountains, possibly as far south as the Lebanon Mountains, and terrorized the Muslims. Eventually, the Mardaites were withdrawn, as the result of a mutual agreement with the Byzantines.
The conquest of Syria by the Arabs occurred progressively over a fifty-year period, although most of the major conquests happened within the first fifteen years after AD 633. But the Byzantines were unwilling to give up this valuable and strategic province without a series of additional battles and attempts to reconquer it. Not until the end of the seventh century did the Byzantines actually acknowledge that Syria was lost to them for ever.
World History
