Note 2 my teacher: I had a really hard time finding information on this subject... Was it just me? :(
“The Byzantine defeat at the battle of Yarmuk in 636 led to the loss of Syria, rapidly followed by Egypt and other North African possessions.” (source)
“The Byzantine Empire was the wedge that separated the Islamic world from the West and was in a vulnerable middle position. Although the Byzantines managed to survive the initial attacks of the Muslims… they always had to worry about new invasions.” (source) “The patriarchal caliphs and later the Umayyad caliphs… really had their sights on Byzantine territory—in fact, the conquest of Byzantium itself.” (source)
“Ghazis, or Muslim holy warriors, launched numerous raids on Byzantine territory throughout the century and successfully internationalized their anti-Byzantine struggle by drawing in other peoples to join in the “defensive” effort to hold earlier Muslim conquests and keep Byzantium hemmed into easily assaulted frontiers.” (source)
“The century opened with a…Muslim success: the Arab sack of the second city of Byzantium, Thessalonica, on July 29, 903, enslaving 30,000 Christians. In 931, Muslim raiding parties reached as far as Ankuriya (modern Ankara), deep in Byzantine territory, and took thousands more Christians captive.” (source)
This early spread of Islam was under the principle of “jihad.” If a Muslim (meaning “submitter”) died for Allah, he would go straight to paradise. The interesting part is that Muhammad actually taught “tolerance” of Christianity and Judaism as long as they paid a tax, but that rule kind of faded away later and the violence got worse. (Thompson, Video)
Works Cited
Thompson, Linwood. High School Level—World History: The Fertile Crescent to The American Revolution-The Rise of Islam. Chantily, VA. 1997
Video we just watched in class on Islam by the Library Series
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