Futūh

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Futūh ( Arabic فتوح, DMG futūḥ  ‚Eroberungen, Siege ', plural ofفتح'Success, opening, opening, beginning') refers to the conquests carried out by Islamized Arab tribal associations after the death of the Muslim prophet Mohammed (632), first on Byzantine and Sassanid territory, which led to the establishment of an Islamic state and, as a further consequence, to the almost complete Islamization of the Near East and the Middle East and North Africa should lead.

Word meaning

In the understanding of Muslim historiographers, the term futūḥ has a strong religious connotation and in this sense describes those wars that the post-prophetic Muslims waged against the "infidels" ( kuffār ). In Arabic lexicography , the verb is synonymous with the verb ghalaba غلب عليه / ġalaba ʿalaihi  / 'win, conquer, take over'. In this sense, Islamic historiography uses the term futūḥ as “conquest” or “conquest” of new areas and their connection to the Islamic empire . The writings that deal with this epoch of early Islamic history after the death of Muhammad are called accordingly kitāb al-futūḥ , "The Book of Conquests", futūḥ al-buldān , "The Conquest of the Lands", or regionally referred to Futūḥ aš- Šām , "the conquest of Syria" etc.

Historical sequence

The Arab-Islamic expansion follows on relatively seamlessly from the ridda (apostasy) struggles that came to an end in 633, i.e. only one year after the death of the Prophet , in the course of which the first of the so-called "rightly guided" caliphs , Abū Bakr (ruled 632-34) tied those Arab tribal groups back to the still young caliphate and the newly formed Muslim community ( umma ) who, according to pre-Islamic custom, had terminated their loyalty to the Muslims after the death of the Prophet. These newly won tribal groups, whose ultimate submission also brought the process of Islamization of the Arabian Peninsula to a close, should also play a central role in the course of the futūḥ . Above all, the nomadic associations that settled in the border regions to the Byzantine and Sassanid empires pushed into the territories of the two empires, weakened due to internal disputes and previous interstate warfare, whose standing armies barely had the flexibility to operate quickly and decentrally to stand up to Arab associations. The fact that both empires already had experience of raids ( ġazawāt , Sg. Ġazwa ) of Arab Bedouins through earlier nomadic attacks, which were mostly local and limited in time, and therefore misjudged the situation, may contribute to the slow and only inadequate reaction of the Central governments of the two empires and thus contributed to their rapid overthrow and large-scale territorial containment. Another factor that may explain the rapid expansion of the unorganized and only very indirectly centrally managed Arab forces is the attitude of the local populations, into whose settlement areas the futūḥ fighters first advanced. Often marginalized by their central governments - which primarily build their legitimation on religious reference systems - due to their perspective of heterodox (sectarian) beliefs and burdened with high taxes due to the war, several Syrian and Egyptian Christians, but also groups on the periphery of the Persian area of ​​influence, may only greet them administratively Little trained and, due to the still weakly developed Islamic dogma, religiously indifferent Islamic conquerors, who imposed only low taxes on their new subjects compared to the previous rulers (the so-called jizya (poll tax) for writing owners ( ahl al -kitāb )).

However, the thesis that the Christian population of Syria and Egypt had because they were often in opposition to the imperial church on religious issues, which welcomed the Arabs, is again very controversial in recent research, as there is evidence of strong local resistance against the Arab conquerors.

chronology

The exact chronology of the Arab-Islamic expansion is still doubtful in many places, but important stages can be recorded: Damascus was taken as early as 635 after Arab associations first invaded Sassanid-controlled Mesopotamia and the Byzantine southern Palestine . Only one year later, in 636, Arab fighters and a Byzantine army face each other on the Yarmūk (Syria / Palestine), in the same year (or not until 637) they meet the army of the in the battle of Qādisiyya (west of Naḥaf, Iraq) Sassanids, in whose wake their capital Ctesiphon falls. Due to the Byzantine defeat on the Yarmūk, Syria and Palestine had actually fallen under Muslim control, a development that was to be finally sealed with the capture of the last Byzantine outposts in this area in 640. The conquest of Egypt under the direction of Amr Ibn-al-ʿĀs, the so-called fatḥ Miṣr , took place in the years 639–642. At the same time, from around 640–642, Muslim associations conquer Sassanid Iran and defeat the last Persian contingent in the battle of Nehawend (Zagros Mountains). Beginning in 650, Muslim associations are now advancing deeper and deeper into North Africa. As early as 711 Muslims stood in the South Indus region for the first time and crossed from Tangier to the Iberian Peninsula, where they defeated the last Gothic king, Roderich, in the battle of the Río Guadalete .

criticism

According to the orientalist Bernard Lewis , futūḥ was not viewed as pure conquests, but as the liberation from “godless regimes” and the establishment of the “divine order” of Islam . This comes e.g. B. in an ultimatum that a Muslim military leader is said to have sent to the princes of Persia: "Praise be to God, who overturned your order, thwarted your evil plans and divided your unity." According to Lewis, this usage is comparable to the term "Liberation". Accordingly, it was mentioned more often by Muslim historians of the modern age in the portrayal of early Islam in this context. According to Lewis, this way of thinking of legitimate conquests is based on the principle of fitra , according to which it is human nature to be Muslim.

literature

Remarks

  1. al-Mu ʿ ǧam al-wasīṭ . tape II . Academy of the Arabic Language, Cairo 1972, p. 178 . ; Ibn Manẓūr : Lisān al- ʿ arab. sv ft-ḥ .
  2. Rudi Paret: The Koran. Commentary and Concordance . Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1980, p. 167 .
  3. Albrecht Noth : Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Munich 1987, p. 58-59 .
  4. Albrecht Noth : Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Munich 1987, p. 62 .
  5. Albrecht Noth : Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Munich 1987, p. 62-63 .
  6. Albrecht Noth : Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Munich 1987, p. 64-66 .
  7. ^ In summary, Wolfram Brandes: Herakleios and the end of antiquity in the east. Triumphs and defeats . In: Mischa Meier (Ed.), You created Europe . Munich 2007, pp. 248-258, here p. 257.
  8. Albrecht Noth : Early Islam . In: Ulrich Haarmann (Hrsg.): History of the Arab world . Munich 1987, p. 59-60 .
  9. At-Tabarī Ta'rīḫ , Vol. 1, 2053; Abū Yūsuf Kitāb al-ḫarāǧ , 85; Abū Ubaid al-Qāsim b. Sallam Kitāb al-amwāl (Cairo 1934), 34.
  10. Lewis 1991, 159, footnote 8