Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Heraclian epoch (610-717)

External Problems

Muhammed and Islam

Page 15

The conquest of Mesopotamia and Persia, which happened simultaneously with these Byzantine occupations, terminated the first period of the Arabian conquests in Asia. At the end of the thirties the Arabian chief Amr appeared at the eastern border of Egypt and began its conquest. After the death of Heraclius, in the year 641 or 642, the Arabs occupied Alexandria and the victorious Amr sent this message to Omar in Medina: I have captured a city from the description of which I shall refrain. Suffice it to say that I have seized therein 4000 villas with 4000 baths, 40,000 poll-tax-paying Jews and four hundred places of entertainment for the royalty. Toward the end of the forties the Byzantine Empire was forced to abandon Egypt forever. The conquest of Egypt was followed by further advances of the Arabs toward the western shores of North Africa. By the year 650 Syria, a part of Asia Minor and Upper Mesopotamia, Palestine, Egypt, and part of the Byzantine provinces in North Africa, were already under Arabian sway.

The conquests, by bringing the Arabs to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, put before them new problems of a maritime nature. They had no fleet and were powerless against the numerous Byzantine vessels to which the new Arabian provinces along the seashore were easily accessible. The Arabs recognized the seriousness of the situation very quickly. The Syrian governor and the future caliph, Muawiya (Moawiya), actively began the construction of numerous vessels whose crews had to be gathered at first among the native Greco-Syrian population accustomed to seafaring. Recent studies of papyri reveal the fact that at the end of the seventh century the construction of ships and their equipment with experienced mariners was one of the great problems of the Egyptian administration.

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