Main Body
Chapter 4: The Early Arab Conquests
Within a century following the death of Muhammad, Arabs had established one of the largest empires in world history, a particularly impressive accomplishment given the fact that the Arabs had never ruled an empire of that size before. There is no doubt that the early Arab conquests were specifically connected with the coming of Islam and the unification of the Arabian peninsula under Muslim rule. Modern historians have debated the meaning of and explanation for the explosive and surprising nature of the Arab conquests. In an upcoming class session, you will be asked to join that debate and contribute your thoughts as to how the Arabs were able to conquer so much territory so quickly and to establish a new society that has persisted throughout the Middle East to the present day.
The readings linked below are excerpts from some of the earliest historical sources that we have regarding the Arab Conquests. It is important to keep in mind that most of them are not primary sources, but were recorded in writing between 150 to 200 years (sometimes longer) after the events they describe. In most cases these accounts were based on earlier oral sources or, in some situations, written documents that are no longer extant. Since this is the case, an important question for the historian to ask is “To what extent were these accounts shaped by the perspectives of the later societies that recorded them? What do they tell us about how medieval Muslims and Christians understood these momentous events that would permanently change the shape of societies on both sides of the Mediterranean Sea?”
The first document linked below was written by the Arab historian ʾAḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī (d. 892). An Abbasid era historian who spent most of his life in Baghdad, al-Balādhurī’s writings indicate that he had strong sympathy with the early Arab conquerors. He conducted research for his major historical work, Kitāb Futūḥ al-Buldān in Syria and Iraq during the late ninth century. The text that remains from this work represents a portion of a larger edition (now lost) that chronicled the geography and political history of the early Caliphates. Al-Balādhurī’s narrative discusses in detail the early Arab conquests and the treaties and settlements that were made in the lands that the Arabs conquered. This text was translated into English in two volumes: vol 1 by Philip Khuri Hitti (1916) and vol 2 by Francis Clark Murgotten (1924). The section included in the linked text tells the story of the important Battle of Yarmuk (636) in which the Arab troops defeated the Byzantine army, opening up the lands of Syria and Palestine to Arab conquest.
Al Baladhuri: The Battle of Yarmuk and After
The second source linked below, entitled “Accounts of the Arab Conquest of Egypt, 642” includes another excerpt from al-Balādhurī. There is also an excerpt from a Christian text, entitled “The History of the Patriarchs of Alexandria.” This Christian source was originally written in Arabic and Coptic (the language of the Egyptian Christians), during the tenth and eleventh centuries, by several different Coptic historians. The Arabic portion, entitled Ta’rikh Batarikat al-Kanisah al-Misriyah, was translated into English by Basil Thomas Alfred Evetts as History of the Patriarchs of the Coptic Church of Alexandria in the early twentieth century (published 1907, 1910 and 1915). It mainly discusses the lives and deeds of the patriarchs (top religious officials) of the early Coptic church. Although written much later than the events it records, the text seems to draw on early documents that are no longer extant. The section linked here discusses the Muslim conquest of Egypt and recounts how the Muslim conqueror, Amr ibn al-`As, invited the Coptic patriarch Benjamin to return to Alexandria and resume leadership of the Coptic church. Benjamin had earlier fled from Alexandria due to persecution from the Byzantines (referred to as Romans in the text).
Accounts of the Arab Conquest of Egypt, 642
The next four documents all deal with the Islamic conquest of Spain, which began in 711 c.e. The first of these texts, entitled “Ibn Abd el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain,” was written by Abu’l Qāsim ʿAbd ar-Raḥman bin ʿAbdullah bin ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, a ninth century Egyptian historian. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s family fell out of favor with the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil, and they were tortured and imprisoned for a time. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s main concern in his writings was to provide the historical background for the expansion of Islam into Egypt and beyond, as part of a project undertaken by Abbasid era religious scholars to collect and identify authentic traditions about the Prophet and his earliest followers. The author is believed to have obtained his information from the writings of early traditionists, now lost, and reports passed down orally over the 150 -200 years between the events themselves and Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s text, which was entitled Futūḥ mișr wa akhbārahā (The Conquest of Egypt and reports about it). The short section of this book that deals with the Arab conquest of Spain (excerpted here) was translated into English by John Harris Jones in 1858.
Ibn Abd el-Hakem: The Islamic Conquest of Spain
The second linked document on the Arab Conquest of Spain, entitled “Tarik’s address to his soldiers, 711 C.E.,” was written by the seventeenth century North African historian, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Maqqarī al-Tilmisānī (d. 1632). Al-Maqqarī’s work, Nafḥ aṭ-ṭīb min Ghusn al-Andalus ar-Raṭīb wa Dhikr Wazīriha Lisān al-Dīn Ibn al-Khaṭīb (The breath of perfumes from the branch of flourishing al-Andalus and memories of its vizier, Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb) is considered to be the most important Arab history of Islamic Spain. The author wrote his work following the fall of Islamic Spain to Christian conquerors in 1492, and the expulsion of Moriscos (Spanish Muslim coverts to Christianity) from Spain between 1609 and 1614. Al-Maqqarī completed his extensive text near the end of his life, after moving to Damascus in 1627.
The text of Nafḥ aṭ-ṭīb is full of nostalgic accounts recalling the greatness of Muslim civilization in the Iberian peninsula and expressing sorrow over its fall to the Christian Reconquista. Al-Maqqarī drew heavily from earlier Muslim texts (some of which are now lost) in writing his account. The excerpt included here claims to record a speech given by the first Muslim conqueror of Spain, Ṭāriq ibn Ziyād, a Berber convert to Islam who led a mostly Berber army across the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa to defeat the Visigoth army and establish Muslim rule in the Iberian peninsula in 711 C.E. Of course, due to the lateness of this source, it is hard to know what Ṭāriq may or may not have actually said to his troops prior to the battle with the Visigoths.
Tarik’s Address to his Soldiers, 711 CE
The third linked document on the Arab Conquest of Spain, entitled “The Battle of Poitiers, 732,” is an account by an anonymous Muslim historian of an important battle between a Frankish army led by Charles Martel and a Muslim army advancing from Spain, which took place near Tours (modern day France) in 732 C.E. The account can be found in Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, which was published in 1851. Creasy, a British historian, whose work sought to identify key battles in the history of Western civilization, does not identify the source from which he obtained this text. He views the Battle of Poitiers as significant in that it turned back Muslim armies from conquering France. In this, Creasy echoes the opinion expressed by the eighteenth century British historian Edward Gibbon, who wrote in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that if Charles Martel had lost this battle, “the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mohammed.” While this is no doubt hyperbole, and some historians argue that the Muslim retreat from France had as much to do with internal circumstances within al-Andalus (Muslim Spain) as it did with Charles Martel’s army, it is nevertheless true that the Muslim expansion into Europe came to a halt for several centuries following the Battle of Tours.
The fourth linked document on the Arab Conquest of Spain, entitled “Arabs, Franks, and the Battle of Tours, 732: Three Accounts,” includes short excerpts about this battle from both Christian and Muslim sources. The three excerpts included here were published in a book entitled, Readings in Ancient History: Illustrative Extracts from the Sources, 2 Vols. (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1912-13), Vol. II: Rome and the West, which was edited by William Stearns Davis. The first excerpt is only identified by Davis as coming from the account of “an Arabian chronicler.” It purports to record a conversation between Musa “the Saracen conqueror of Spain” (Mūsā ibn Nuṣayr) and the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik upon Musa’s return to Damascus following the conquest of Spain. The second excerpt was originally written in Latin by an anonymous Mozarab chronicler (Spanish Christian living under Muslim rule) and is thought to date back to the eighth century. His text, known as The Chronicle of 754 (or The Mozarabic Chronicle), traces the history of Visigothic Spain and the Byzantine empire through the early years of al-Andalus, 611-754 C.E. Although originally attributed to a bishop named Isidorus Pacensis (Davis calls him Isidore of Beja), who may have lived in Córdoba (other scholars say he was from Toledo), most historians now reject this attribution. What historians agree on is that this is the earliest remaining account of the Muslim conquest of Spain, of which the author may have been an eyewitness. The third excerpt is from the Chronicle of St. Denis, a history of the origins of France originally composed by monks at the St. Denis Abbey, which is located in what is today the northern suburbs of Paris. This text was combined with later manuscripts during the late fourteenth century in an attempt to create a coherent history that bolstered the legitimacy of the Valois dynasty, which ruled France from the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. The short excerpt included here lauds the victory of Charles Martel (viewed by the authors as the initial king of France) over the Saracens (Muslims).
I also include here a link to a full discussion of the background of the The Chronicle of 754 along with a translation of the full text by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi (2019).
Arabs, Franks and the Battle of Tours, 732
The Mozarabic Chronicle: Full Translation and Analysis
The last source linked here is to a famous text known as The Pact of Umar. Purporting to date back to the time of the second caliph, Umar, this text is actually thought to have been written in its present form during the ninth century. The text deals with the origins of the “dhimmi pact,” according to which non-Muslims (originally primarily Christians and Jews) living in lands conquered by Muslims would agree to submit to Muslim rule in exchange for certain privileges, the primary of which was the right to continue to practice their faith with certain restrictions as well as a guarantee of security for themselves, their families and their possessions . Non-Muslims who agreed to abide by this pact were required to pay an additional poll tax, known as the jizya, and were referred to as dhimmis (protected peoples). The text was allegedly written by Syrian Christians who were submitting to Muslim rule during the time of Umar, with the purpose of detailing the rules and restrictions they would abide by as dhimmis. Its contents served as the standard definition of the dhimmi covenant during subsequent centuries of Muslim rule over non-Muslim communities. Although the dhimmi covenant was mostly eliminated throughout the world during the era of European colonialism, there remain some Islamist groups who would like to see it reinstated in Muslim lands.
The map below traces the expansion of Islamic rule during the first century after Muhammad.
