Arabia on the Eve of Islam

THE RISE OF ISLAM AND CALIPHATES HIST 1301 | History Arabia on the Eve of Islam From the outside, the Arabian Peninsula in the fifth and sixth century CE appeared to be a small area on the southern periphery of the Byzantine (Roman) and Sasanian (Persian) Empires, the two final major empires of antiquity. Much of Arabia had hard terrain; the peninsula was home to several arid, hostile locations with limited rainfall, water availability, and arable land. Even now, the Rubʽ al-Khali, a 250,000-square-mile sand desert that hardly supports the few remaining indigenous Arab tribes, occupies a significant chunk of the centre of modern-day Saudi Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula may not seem like the most likely place for the establishment of a powerful kingdom and the greatest religious tradition in the world to many people. But despite appearances, the Arabian Peninsula has always been more diversified than one may think. It was the home of several tribes in the fifth, sixth, and early seventh centuries, split for the same reason but frequently bound by the kinship ties common to nomadic and seminomadic peoples worldwide. Historians sometimes classify peoples together based on shared cultural traits including cuisine, dress, and religious practices, as well as shared linguistic traits and geographic location, as they did with the Celts, Iroquois, Mongols, and Persians, to mention a few. But other from these commonalities, the Arabian Peninsula's peoples had nothing in common before the seventh century. Numerous groups in the area competed with one another for resources, power, prestige, and influence, dividing them along tribal lines. There was a long history of expansion and struggle between the enormous Byzantine and Persian Empires to the immediate north. But for all their power, none of them wanted to rule Arabia. Many of those ancient powers saw Arabia as a backwater populated by warlike and nomadic Arab tribes, and they saw no need to shift their imperial aspirations southward. Even though western Arabia was a part of the commercial goods caravans that moved between the east and the west, there were little resources generated in the region to imply invasion would be viable. But the area was a patchwork of distinct cultures and histories. Arab wandering tribes known as the Bedouin relied mostly on herding animals and, occasionally, on attacking inhabited settlements and trade caravans. Polytheism was a common practice among Bedouin and other seminomadic Arabs. It involved the worship of several gods and goddesses, many of whom were thought to be protectors of particular tribes or places. The Arabian Peninsula was home to more than only polytheistic religions; prior to the advent of Islam, the monotheistic religions of Judaism and Christianity also existed there and had an impact on the development of Islam. In reality, because of the hard conditions in the ancient and late antique periods, significant monasteries dedicated to Christian worship were established. This allowed the monks to devote themselves entirely to leading an austere life far from the material world. There formerly existed a kingdom called Himyar in what is now Yemen, at the far south of the Arabian Peninsula. Some of the region's most fertile territories were under the hands of its monarchs. Their state was founded on agricultural products, luxury items like myrrh and frankincense, and their function as middlemen in commerce between East Africa and the Indian Ocean. Using camel caravans along the western coast of Arabia, the Himyarites and their forebears the Sabaeans played important roles in long-distance trade, transporting products from Africa and Asia to marketplaces in cities like Alexandria, Damascus, Jerusalem, and beyond. Their cultural effect was significant as well; many Arab tribes in the south traced their ancestry straight to these esteemed nations. The region saw a rise in monotheism following the Himyarite monarchs' choice to convert to Judaism in the latter part of the fourth century CE. The Arabs who interacted with the Byzantine and Sasanian empires for the longest were those who lived in the far north of Arabia, near their southern boundaries. The tribes of northern Arabia were most frequently involved in disturbing the commerce caravans that delivered products to and from the urban imperial centres, even though they had long served as middlemen in trade between the Mediterranean realm and the nations around the Indian Ocean. Both the Byzantines and the Persians chose to use certain Arab confederations to establish a buffer between the settled populations and the southern invaders in order to repel this onslaught on their frontiers. The most well-known were the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids, who by the sixth century CE were in the service of the Persians and Byzantines, respectively, and became assimilated into their cultures. Numerous aspects of Byzantine culture, including Christianity, were embraced by the Ghassanids. Historians have discovered some of the earliest surviving usage of the Arabic alphabet, dating back to the seventh century, among Christian Arabs in particular. For a while, the Ghassanids were also officially acknowledged and honoured by the Byzantine emperors. The Byzantine emperor Justinian granted honorific titles and recognised the Ghassanid king as a phylarch, or local ruler or chieftain, in the sixth century. From the late 4th century onward, the Lakhmids were acknowledged as Sasanian Persian allies and established themselves at the city of Al-Hirah in central Iraq. Like the Ghassanids, some Lakhmids adopted a kind of Christianity called Nestorianism, which allowed them to flourish under the large empire's protection of its southern boundaries from other Arabs. But these tribes were not only tools of their bigger masters. Their communities were able to thrive because they were allies with a certain amount of autonomy. When compared to other Arab tribes, they were able to form strong confederations because to the funding and assistance they received, and their conversion to Christianity facilitated the expansion of monotheism throughout the area. But there was always tension in the connection between the Sasanian Persians and the Byzantines. Both empires aspired to become more powerful than they already were, and they frequently engaged in conflict and sought to influence one another's political processes, sometimes even by endorsing competing heirs. Their antagonistic dynamic was not unusual in late antiquity. There was frequent warfare between the Parthian dynasty, which dominated Persia, and the Rome that was still one single empire. But by the sixth century, these confrontations between the two dominant forces in the area were becoming more expensive and dangerous. Since both nations stood to lose greatly by open combat, the Arab Ghassanids and the Lakhmids were frequently used as proxies in their conflicts. The Arab tribes benefited from this system as long as they expected money and acknowledgment for their contributions. But a lot had changed by the start of the seventh century. Conflicts frequently erupted in the borders between Sasanian Persia and the Byzantine Empire; this occurred many times in the sixth century, particularly in regions like Iraq and Armenia (today called the Caucasus). However, the fight erupted in 602 AD. Maurice, the Byzantine emperor, was assassinated by his own army after mediating peace between the Sasanian monarch Khosrow II and helping him retake the Persian crown. Khosrow swore retaliation and used the coup as justification to launch what historians refer to as "the last great war of antiquity," installing Phocas as the new ruler. The Byzantines and Persians fought a catastrophic war that affected the entire region for a long time from 602 and 628. During the first phase, the Byzantines were overrun by Khosrow and the Persians, who then took control of most of their eastern Mediterranean holdings, including Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and—most importantly—the valuable agricultural province of Egypt. Aside from the Persian war, Phocas faced instability within his kingdom and was removed from power and put to death in 610 by Heraclius, the newly proclaimed emperor. Heraclius was able to lead the Byzantines to victory and put an end to the battle in 628 because he was driven by a desire to reclaim lost territory, restore peace to the empire, and rebuild the army to take on the Persians. Still, the Sasanian monarchy was not overthrown by Heraclius and the Byzantines. At the end of the struggle, Khosrow II was ousted in a civil war, but neither side was genuinely equipped to continue a protracted and expensive war against the other. Although the Byzantines prevailed in the end, the conflict had a disastrous political, military, and economic impact on both sides. Heraclius, with all his achievements, had focused all of his attention and state spending on the war, not on really running the empire. After more than fifteen years of fighting, both sides had lost a significant number of soldiers, and the survivors were war-weary and prepared to retire. Both sides had committed so much of the state's resources to winning—and surviving—that they lacked the funds to reconstruct the army or its defences. The war had a profound impact on society, affecting not only the Byzantine victory but also the state and nobles' capacity to support the arts, historical writing, and scholarship. As a result, the period became known as the "Byzantine Dark Age" due to the scarcity of historical writing that survived in the seventh and eighth centuries. Last but not least, as the boundaries were always shifting, a lot of ordinary people trying to get by were probably thrown from side to side as the war's tides shifted. Even the people who lived in locations like Jerusalem, Antioch, and Damascus, which seemed to be safe, would have been exhausted from constant fighting. As it happened, the war had a wide-ranging effect. Theophanes, a later chronicler of Byzantine history, described how the conflict had altered the Byzantine-Arab relations in the year 630–631, presumably affecting tribes like the Ghassanids that had received special treatment and payments from the state. "There were some Arabs nearby who received modest allowances from the emperors for guarding the desert pathways," Theophanes recounted. A eunuch arrived to distribute the troops' allowances; but, as was customary, the eunuch pushed the Arabs away when they attempted to claim theirs. "The monarch finds it difficult to compensate his soldiers, let alone provide funds for such canines," he said. Outraged, the Arabs went to their allies and showed them the way to the Gaza area and the extraordinarily wealthy paths leading to Sinai. Future events were also significantly impacted by the chronology and conditions of this protracted final battle between the Byzantines and Sasanians, as well as how weary both sides were by the end. Their catastrophic conflict between these major nations was probably the last thing on the monarchs' thoughts, but they were probably unaware of their southern boundary. The existence of the two ancient empires was directly affected by the Arabs of western Arabia uniting for the first time in history under the leadership of a man named Muhammad and the religion of Islam.