Conquest of Damascus (635)

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Conquest of Damascus
Kisan Gate, one of the ancient city gates of Damascus
Kisan Gate, one of the ancient city gates of Damascus
date September (?) 635 AD
place Damascus
output Arab victory
consequences Damascus falls to the caliphate
Parties to the conflict

caliphate

Eastern Roman Empire

Commander

Chālid ibn al-Walīd

Thomas


The conquest of Damascus took place in 635 AD by troops of the emerging Islamic Caliphate . Due to the sources, however, several details are controversial.

prehistory

In 628/29 the last and greatest Roman-Persian war had come to an end after the Eastern Roman Emperor Herakleios had led a successful campaign in Mesopotamia and the New Persian Sassanid Empire sank into political chaos after the battle of Nineveh . Around the same time came on the Arabian Peninsula with the Islam a new religion. After the death of the Prophet Mohammed in 632, Abu Bakr became the first caliph to succeed . After putting down some internal revolts, Abu Bakr began to expand his empire beyond the borders of Arabia.

The now beginning Islamic expansion was greatly favored by the weakness of the two great powers East and Persia. The Arab advance in the Syrian-Palestinian area 633/34 was initially associated with a few setbacks, but was ultimately successful. There is agreement that four Arab commanders played a leading role in the invasion of Syria: ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀs , Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyan, Shurahbīl ibn Hasana and Abū ʿUbaida ibn al-Jarrāh . According to al-Wāqidī , Abū Bakr had previously assigned each of the four to a specific area of ​​operation. According to this original plan, it was Yazid's task to conquer the city of Damascus.

The first forays into the Damascus area were then made by Chālid ibn al-Walīd , who advanced from Iraq to Syria in the spring of 634. It is reported that in April 634 he attacked the Banū Ghassān in Marj Rāhit while they were celebrating Easter, and then sent the two fighters Busr ibn Abī Artāt al-ʿĀmirī and Habīb ibn Maslama al-Fihrī to the Ghūta of Damascus, which then covered their villages with war.

In May 634, the eastern Roman fortress of Bostra , south of Damascus, fell , and the remaining eastern Roman troops in Syria were soon in retreat. After an armed conflict near Mardch as-Suffar in the south of the Ghūta, the Muslim troops moved against Damascus. According to al-Balādhurī , this happened in the middle of the month of Muharram in the year 14 of the Hijra (= mid-March 635).

Conquering the city

The source situation regarding the actual conquest of Damascus is extremely problematic and has been discussed controversially in recent research. The events are difficult to reconstruct due to the sometimes extremely contradicting and ambiguous sources. Only sparse, brief reports have been received from the Christian side. The more detailed Arabic reports come from a later period and convey a very mixed picture; sometimes the name of the conqueror is not given or an exact date is not given.

According to some sources, the siege lasted six months and ended in August / September 635 with the surrender of the city. Questions about the Arab command hierarchy are of particular importance here. Other reports do not speak directly of a siege, but do speak of a conquest of the city and emphasize the importance of the Arab commander. There is also a report of a military conquest and a subsequent diplomatic agreement with the Christian population of the city. In the third tradition, these negotiations play a central role. A certain Thomas is said to have acted as the commander of the eastern Roman troops in the city.

Jens Scheiner thoroughly examined all available sources in a comprehensive study and came to a very sober result. It can only be considered relatively certain that Damascus fell to the Muslim conquerors in 635 and that a contractual agreement was apparently concluded in this context, which made opening the gates a condition and included protective rights for the Christian population. A siege and storming of the city did not take place.

swell

literature

  • Fred M. Donner: The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1981.
  • Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 0-521-40437-1 .
  • Jens J. Scheiner: The Conquest of Damascus. Source-critical examination of the historiography in the classical Islamic period. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010, ISBN 978-90-04-17684-3 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ For details cf. Hugh Kennedy: The Great Arab Conquests. Philadelphia 2007, pp. 71ff.
  2. ↑ See Fred Donner : The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton 1981, p. 114.
  3. ↑ Cf. al-Balāḏurī: Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān. Leiden 1866, p. 108 (German translation by Rescher, p. 109).
  4. ↑ See Fred Donner: The Early Islamic Conquests. Princeton 1981, p. 124 and p. 313.
  5. ↑ Cf. al-Balāḏurī: Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān. Leiden 1866, p. 108 (German translation by Rescher, p. 109).
  6. ↑ Overview in James Howard-Johnston : Witnesses to a World Crisis. Oxford 2010; Robert G. Hoyland : Seeing Islam as Others Saw It. A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Princeton 1997.
  7. ↑ Extensive discussion with Jens J. Scheiner: The conquest of Damascus. Source-critical examination of the historiography in the classical Islamic period. Leiden / Boston 2010, p. 21ff.
  8. ↑ Jens J. Scheiner: The conquest of Damascus. Source-critical examination of the historiography in the classical Islamic period. Leiden / Boston 2010, pp. 473ff., Especially pp. 491–493.
  9. ↑ Several modern representations assume a siege and conquest, see for example Moshe Gil: A History of Palestine, 634-1099. Cambridge 1992, pp. 44f.