Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition ( 7Th – 9Th Century )

Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition ( 7th – 9th Century ) Helen C. Evans s the seventh century began, the area of the eastern ( ca. 675 – 749 ), who lived in the southern provinces still claimed by Mediterranean — from Syria through Egypt and across the empire, became leaders in the defense of the religious venera A North Africa — was central to the spiritual and political tion of icons ( see Ratliff, p. 32, and cat. no. 80). heart of the Byzantine Empire, which was ruled from The revived Byzantine Empire that emerged in the ninth cen Constantinople ( also called New Rome, modern Istanbul ). These tury could no longer claim the southern provinces that reached territories, almost as extensive as they were during the era of the around the eastern Mediterranean and across North Africa. Roman Empire from which Byzantium emerged, were among Rather, the empire, ruled from Constantinople, looked north the richest provinces of the state. In the early sixth century, the ward, successfully expanding into the Balkans and converting the emperor Justinian I ( r. 527 – 65 ) had regained the North African Slavs. Significant contacts, both political and military, were estab Roman lands and a small portion of southern Spain that had been lished between the capital and Muslim courts. Trade routes to the lost to the Vandals in the fifth century. He rejoined them with east were maintained and even flourished, but they now followed Egypt and the empire’s eastern Mediterranean lands to control all northern, not southern, paths. The southern provinces, though the southern Mediterranean.1 The important cities and towns lost, retained contact with Byzantium through their Christian along the major trade routes reached around the Mediterranean communities and trade connections, but they were ruled by pow and along the Red Sea ( fig. 1 ). Their inhabitants, who lived in ers of the Muslim world.3 close proximity to one another, if not always in close collabora The critical period of transition and transformation for the tion, included peoples of many faiths and varied ethnic back empire and its southern provinces was the span from the seventh grounds. Surviving manuscripts and inscriptions on mosaic floors into the ninth century. At the beginning of that time, the and liturgical objects reveal some of the languages spoken or territories were under the universal law of the Byzantine state written by the populace, including Greek, Coptic, Aramaic, ( the Codex Justinianus ), its governors were appointed from Syriac, and Arabic ( for Greek, cat. nos. 1, 15a, 22, 59, 66b; for Coptic, Constantinople, taxes were paid to the capital, and the church of cat. nos. 15b, 46; for Aramaic, cat. nos. 66a, 70; for Syriac, cat. nos. 39, Constantinople was the official authority in the region (fig. 2 ) 40; and for Arabic, cat. no. 67 ). Missing from this list is Latin, then ( cat. no. 21 ). The poor of the capital were fed with grain shipped the official language of the Byzantine state; its lack reflects the from Egypt, and the provinces emulated the styles of the preference for Greek in the eastern Mediterranean. capital.4 As military incursions by the Sasanian Persians ( see By the end of the seventh century, with the rise of the Islamic Nagel, p. 27, and cat. nos. 16 – 20 ) and subsequently the Umayyads world, these Byzantine provinces included Arabs from the ( see Ballian, p. 200, and cat. nos. 141 – 151 ) wrested territories Arabian Peninsula. Byzantine forces struggled to regain control from imperial control, however, their role as a major source of of their territories for more than a hundred years. During this grain and taxes for the empire was diverted to their new rulers, period of transition from Byzantine to Islamic power, Constanti and the Orthodox Church of Constantinople lost its authority nople was attacked by various armies, most especially the Avars, over the region.5 Many of the same languages that were in use Slavs, and Persians. In an effort to preserve a secure capital, several during the Byzantine era continued in the first generations of emperors, including Heraclius ( r. 610 – 41 ), considered moving to Muslim rule, with Christian texts increasingly written in Arabic a new site, which Heraclius’s grandson the emperor Constans II ( Greek, cat. no. 42, or Greek / Arabic, cat. no.32; Coptic, cat. ( r. 641 – 68 ) did, when he moved the capital to Syracuse in Sicily nos. 43, 48, 49; Syriac, cat. no. 31; Arabic, cat. nos. 32 – 36, 81, for the last years of his reign.2 From the eighth into the ninth 83a, 188 – 193 ). century, during the Iconoclastic controversy, the church in During the early seventh century, however, the territories Constantinople and the Byzantine state forcefully debated the were still central to the empire’s power. Heraclius, the greatest correct role of religious images. Men like Saint John of Damascus emperor of the seventh century, sailed from the wealthy North 4 byzantium and islam: age of transition Fig. 1. Surviving portion of the Madaba Map, Church of Saint George, Madaba, Jordan, mid6th century. The map includes sites from across the eastern and southern provinces of the Byzantine Empire; 157 sites with captions are preserved. Reproduced from Piccirillo 1992, Madaba Map foldout African Byzantine provinces with their major cities, such as the rest of Constantinople’s history as the capital of the Byzantine Carthage, Tripoli, and Hadrumentum / Justinianopolis ( modern Empire.9 Sousse, Tunisia ), to take the imperium ( see also Evans, p. 14 ).6 Heraclius and his armies would best the Persians by 630, briefly His first wife, Fabia, the daughter of a North African landowner, restoring the eastern Mediterranean to Constantinopolitan control. who probably spoke Latin, took the Greek name Eudokia when Among those who fought along with him were the Ghassanid she became empress, in recognition of the fact that Greek was Arab Christians, who had long helped protect the eastern borders becoming the language of the Byzantine court.7 Coming to the of the empire.10 Soon after the defeat of the Persians, a new, unan throne as part of the rebellion against the emperor Phokas ticipated problem arose: raids by Arab armies from Arabia whose ( Focas ) ( r. 602 – 10 ), Heraclius, responding to the internal and threat was initially not adequately recognized by either the external problems that led to the overthrow of his predecessor, Byzantines or the Sasanian Persians.11 The decisive Arab victory focused his attention on the Sasanian Persian threat to the at the battle of Yarmuk in 636 during the last years of Heraclius’s empire and was the first Byzantine ruler since the fourth cen reign led to the conquest of all the southern Byzantine provinces tury to lead his armies into battle.8 When he marched toward and those of North Africa in rapid order.12 It can be argued that the Persian threat, he left regents from his family, the patrician Heraclius helped save Constantinople and its surrounding territo Bonos and the patriarch Sergios, to protect Constantinople. ries for another eight hundred years by preserving Anatolia During the frightening, but failed, joint attack on the city through a border defense along the northern edge of the empire’s by the Avars with Slavic allies and the Persians in 626, the southern provinces that prevented further Arab penetration.13 patriarch carried an icon of the Virgin on the capital’s walls. Certainly Byzantine forces under Heraclius’s successors, members Defenders and attackers alike saw a veiled woman, who was of his own dynasty, persisted in attempting to halt the Arab identified as the Virgin, walking its ramparts. Because of this advance. Under Constantine IV ( r. 668 – 85 ), Greek fire, a sub event, the Virgin was known as the city’s protector throughout stance with properties similar to those of napalm, was recorded as byzantium 5 Fig. 2. Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey, 532 – 37 being used in a successful naval battle against an Arab fleet, the first mention of its existence. Successful military advances by the Byzantines at the same time forced the first Umayyad caliph, Mu‘awiya ( r. 661 – 80 ), to sue for a thirtyyear peace with Byzantium and to provide the empire with substantial annual payments in gold.14 Portions of the population of the southern provinces remained intensely loyal to the empire and its church ( see Hieromonk Justin of Sinai, p. 50, and cat. nos. 26 – 30 ). People from religious communities that had resisted the efforts of Heraclius and the patriarch to unite all the citizens of the empire under one Christian church may have been more receptive to a new ruling elite and thus less hostile to the arrival of the Arabs.15 The imperial provinces along the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean were important for their wealth and their central positions on trade routes to and from the East. From Alexandria — the secondlargest city of the empire, with its famous lighthouse ( fig. 3 ) — merchants traveled along the coast Fig. 3. Detail showing a personification of the Alexandria lighthouse ( pharos ) from the mosaic floor of the Justinianic church at Qasr Libya, of North Africa and down the Red Sea to the riches of India Libya, 6th century and China ( see Thomas, p. 124 ). Christian Byzantine efforts to 6 byzantium and islam: age of transition control access to the silks and spices of the East had reached ( once called Nestorian Christians ), until the region became part their greatest success in the sixth century. The emperor Justin I of the expanding Muslim world in 632.18 Syrian Orthodox ( r. 518 – 27 ), who was succeeded by his nephew Justinian I, sup Christians were also active as missionaries in the area during ported the conquest of the kingdom of Himyar ( in what is now these centuries ( see Khalek, p.

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