Go Greek fire you’re burning up the quarter mile
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
Go Greek fire you’re coasting through the heat lap trials
(Greek fire, go Greek fire)
You are supreme, the chicks’ll cream for Greek fire – Greek fire in Byzantine manuscript

(12) ARAB CONQUESTS (622 – 751 AD)

The Arab conquests were a nigh-unstoppable historical explosion, once previously divided tribes in a historical backwater had been united under Mohammed – conquering one of history’s largest pre-modern empires (indeed the seventh or eighth largest in all history) on three continents in a little over a century, a blitzkrieg by horse, sail…and camel!

 “In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting.”

Mohammed had essentially conquered the Arabian peninsula, but his death left his successors – the three great Arab caliphates – only at the start of extending his empire to even wider conquests.

The Rashidun Caliphate, immediate successors to Mohammed, did most of the heavy lifting to break out of the Arabian peninsula. Two formidable empires blocked their path, the Persian Empire and the eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire, but the Arabs conquered the former and routed the latter back to Anatolia.

However, it was under their successors, the Umayyad Caliphate, that Arab conquests reached their greatest extent, westwards from the north African shore to Europe itself – conquering Spain (well, not quite all, in a manner similar to the famous caveat to the Roman conquest of Gaul in Asterix comics) and famously invading France before being turned back at Tours by Charles Martel.

Eastwards, the Umayyads also extended beyond Persia through central Asia to the fringes of India and China – the latter of which presented even the Tang Empire some difficulty resisting their advance.

The Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids in 750 AD and the Abbasids then formed the third great Arab caliphate, the Abbasid Caliphate, who then presided over what is often regarded as the Golden Age of Islam from their capital in Baghdad. The surviving Umayyad dynasty fled into exile across the Mediterranean to Spain, continuing their Caliphate as the Emirate of Cordoba independent from the Abbasids, even with their own rival golden age of Islam in the fabled Al-Andalus of Spain.

Although the Abbasids made some more territorial gains – notably Sicily and Crete – their Caliphate saw an end to the rapid Arab conquests, albeit with victory against Tang China in the Battle of Talas in 751 AD as a postscript:

“Muslim armies had come against a combination of natural barriers and powerful states that impeded any further military progress. The wars produced diminishing returns … The priorities of the rulers also shifted from conquest of new lands to administration of the acquired empire … the period of rapid centralized expansion would now give way to an era when further spread of Islam would be slow and accomplished through the efforts of local dynasties, missionaries, and traders.”

One is spoilt for choice for wars in the century and more of Arab conquests, but if one were to choose the wars that best encapsulate them as a whole, it would be the Arab-Byzantine wars from 629 AD to 718 AD.

The Byzantine or eastern Roman empire was the first state of substance that the Arabs faced when breaking out from their peninsula. It seemed incredible that the Arabs could defeat such a firmly established state, even when that state was weakened from recent war with Persia, yet they did – routing it back to Anatolia as they conquered its other territory in Asia and Africa, which then became their springboard for further conquests.

Ironically, it then seemed incredible that the Byzantines could hold the line or withstand complete defeat or conquest by the Arabs as the latter went from one victory to another – yet they did, from Arab attacks by land and by sea, even as the Arabs besieged Constantinople twice, in 674-678 AD and in 717-718 AD. Among other things, the Byzantine superweapon Greek fire was instrumental in their success.

The frontiers of Arab conquest finally stabilized between them in Anatolia, as it did elsewhere under the Abbasid caliphate at about this time, until from about 863 AD when the Byzantines – incredibly again – were able to regain both the initiative and some of their former territory, in wars usually reversed in name to the Byzantine-Arab wars to signify Byzantine ascendance.

RATING: 4 STARS****

A-TIER (TOP TIER)