In the first half of the 7th century, Syria was absorbed by the Caliphate. Arab Muslim forces appeared on the southern border even before the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, but the real invasion occurred in 633–634, with Khalid ibn al-Walid as their most important leader.
Middle East | Syria | Medieval Period
Islamic Conquest
In 635, Damascus surrendered, its inhabitants being promised security for their lives, properties and churches upon payment of a poll tax. A counterattack by Emperor Heraclius was defeated at the Battle of the Yarmuk River in 636; by 640 the conquest was virtually complete.
The new rulers divided Syria into four districts (junds): Damascus, Homs, Jordan and Palestine (the fifth, Qinnasrin, was added later).
The Arab garrisons were kept separate in camps, and life went on as before. Conversion to Islam had barely begun, with the exception of the Arab tribes already established in Syria; except for the tribe of Ghassan, they all became Muslims. Christians and Jews were treated tolerantly; Nestorian and Jacobite Christians had better treatment compared to the time of Byzantium. The Byzantine form of administration remained, but the new Muslim tax system was introduced. From 639 the governor of Syria was Mu'awiyah of the house of Umayyads of Mecca.
He used the country as a base for expeditions against the Byzantine Empire, building the first Muslim navy in the Mediterranean. When civil war broke out in the Islamic Empire as a result of the assassination of ʿUthman and the appointment of ʿAli as caliph, Syria stood firm with Mu'awiyah, who extended his authority over neighboring provinces and was proclaimed caliph in 660. He was the first of the Umayyad lineage that ruled the empire, with Syria as its core and Damascus its capital, for almost a century.
The Umayyads of Syria
The early Umayyad period was characterized by strength and expansion. The army, mainly Arab and largely Syrian, extended the borders of Islam. He took the war against Byzantium to Asia Minor and besieged Constantinople; to the east it penetrated Khorasan, Turkestan and northwestern India; and, spreading along the northern coast of Africa, occupied a large part of Spain. This vast empire received a regular administration that gradually acquired an Arab-Islamic character. The Syrians played an important role in this, and the country profited from the wealth flowing from the rich provinces to the center of the empire.
The caliphs built splendid palaces and the first great monuments of Muslim religious architecture: the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and the Great Mosque of Damascus, built by the Umayyads.
The religious sciences of Islam began to develop while Christian culture was still flourishing. Except under 'Umar II, Christians were treated favorably, and there were even Christian officials at court. Under the later Umayyads, however, the strength of the central government declined. There were factions and feuds within the dominant group: the Arabs of Iraq resented the domination of Syria; non-Arab converts to Islam (known as "mawali") resented the social gap between them and the Arabs; and devout Muslims considered the Umayyads too worldly in their lives and politics.
After the defeat and death of 'Ali's son Hussein at the Battle of Karbala in 680, sentiment in favor of 'Ali's family still remained strong. The later Umayyads were unable to control these discontents. Their government was finally overthrown and the family "virtually" destroyed by the new Abbasid Caliphate in 750. Among these was ʿAbd al-Rahman, a member of the ruling family, who survived the attack and fled west to reestablish the Umayyads in Al-Andalus , in Spain.
The end of the Umayyad dynasty meant the transfer of power from Syria to Iraq. Syria became a dependent province of the Caliphate. His loyalty was suspect, as Umayyad sentiment persisted and the last pro-Umayyad revolt was not crushed until 905.
The Christian population was treated less favorably; Discriminatory legislation was applied to it under some caliphs and the process of conversion to Islam continued. Closely linked to it was the gradual adoption of Arabic in place of Greek and Aramaic, although the latter survived in some villages.
From the 9th to the 12th century
When the Abbasid Caliphate disintegrated, Syria fell out of Baghdad's sphere of influence. In 877, it was annexed by the Tulunid dynasty of Egypt, beginning a political connection that would last between intervals for more than six centuries. In northern Syria, the Tulunids were succeeded by a local Arab dynasty, the Hamdanids of Aleppo, founded by Sayf al-Dawlah (944–967); they engaged in war with Byzantium, in which their first successes were followed by the Greek recovery of Antioch (969). In central and southern Syria, another Egyptian dynasty, the Ikhshidids, established itself (941-969); their successors, the Fatimid caliphs of Cairo, later absorbed the entire country.
Despite political disturbances, the 10th and 11th centuries were a period of flourishing culture. Around the court of the Hamdanids lived some of the greatest Arab writers: the poets al-Mutanabi and al-Maʿarri, the philosopher al-Farabi, and the anthologist Abu al-Faraj al-Isbahani. It was a period of ferment in Islamic thought, when Shi'ism challenged Sunni Islam and its offshoots reached their peak. The Fatimids were themselves Shiites. In the late 10th century, Syria was threatened by the Qarmatians, adherents of an extreme form of Shi'ism who had established a state in the Persian Gulf. The danger was defeated, but it returned as an esoteric doctrine spread by the Ismailis from their center at Salamiyyah in northern Syria.
In the second half of the 11th century, Syria fell to the Seljuk Turks, who had established a sultanate in Asia Minor. They occupied Aleppo and then Damascus, but after the death of Sultan Malik-Shah in 1092, the Seljuk empire fell to pieces, and between 1098 and 1124 the Crusaders occupied Antioch, Jerusalem, Al-Karak in Transjordan, and the coast.
The Crusaders organized their conquests into four states beholden to the king of Jerusalem. Their situation was precarious. The Crusaders were always a minority in their states and never penetrated far into the interior. They could maintain their position only as long as the surrounding Muslim states were weak and divided. Zangi, the Turkish ruler of Mosul, occupied Aleppo in 1128 and recovered Edessa from the Crusaders in 1144. His son Nur al-Din united the Syrian interior and annexed Egypt.
After his death, his kingdom was rebuilt and strengthened by his viceroy in Egypt, Saladin, who ended the Fatimid Caliphate, created a strong kingdom in Egypt and Syria, and defeated the Crusaders at the great Battle of Hattin (1187). He recovered all of Palestine and most of the interior strongholds from the Crusaders. Soon afterwards, however, the Third Crusade reconquered part of the coast.
The Ayyubids and Mamluks
After Saladin's death, his kingdom was divided among members of his family, the Ayyubids, who established principalities in Aleppo, Hamah, Homs, Damascus, Ba'labakk (Baalbek), and Transjordan and ruled them until 1260. The period of Nur al-Din, Saladin, and their successors was of great importance. Due in large part to the establishment of commercial centers on the coast and better security, economic life recovered and Syria reached a level of prosperity it had not enjoyed for centuries.
Ayyubid rulers stimulated culture and architecture. Following the Seljuks, they created a new land system based on granting land rights in exchange for military service. They were champions of Sunni Islam against the Shia sects that had gained ground in the previous era. They built colleges of a new type, the madrassa, as centers of learning. Their efforts to stamp out the Shia sects have not been completely successful. The Nizaris (Assassins), a sect of the Ismailis, maintained their mountain strongholds and had some political importance.
Although strong internally, the state was still endangered by the desert Bedouin tribes and the Mongols, who first invaded Syria in 1260 and sacked Aleppo. They were expelled not by local rulers but by a new Egyptian military power, the Mamluks, a self-perpetuating elite of slaves and freedmen, mainly of Turkic and Circassian origin, who replaced the Ayyubids as rulers of Egypt in 1250.
They defeated the Mongols at the Battle of 'Ayn Jalut in Palestine; The victorious Mamluk general, Baybars I, made himself sultan of a kingdom composed of Syria and Egypt, which he ruled until his death in 1277. This state continued to exist for more than two centuries.
In 1291, he recovered Acre and other coastal cities from the Crusaders, who were expelled; and a few years later he took the last Crusader stronghold, the island of Ruad (Arwad). The Mamluks reorganized the Ayyubid principalities into six provinces, of which Damascus was the largest and most important. Political power was in the hands of the Mamluk elite, who held virtual property in exchange for military service in the cavalry. But, there was a local element in the government, the civil servants coming mainly from Syrian Arab families with their tradition of religious learning.
Like the Ayyubids, the Mamluks favored Sunni Islam. Religious culture flourished and produced a number of great scholars, such as the jurist Hanbali Ibn Taymiyyah. For religious and political reasons, the Mamluks dealt harshly with the religious minorities living in the coastal mountain ranges: Druze, Maronite Christians, Ismailis, and Alawites (or Nusayris; adherents of another creed derived from Shi'ism and living in the Al-Ansariyyah Mountains). One of the main reasons for this severity was the Mamluks' fear that these minorities might cooperate with the Crusaders if they attempted to return.
In the early Mamluk period, Syria remained prosperous; rulers built public works and Venetian merchants carried out their coastal trade. But in 1401 came a blow to economic life: a new Mongol invader, Timur (Tamerlane), sacked Aleppo and Damascus. His empire did not long survive his death in 1405, but the damage was already done. Cities were burned, much of their population was killed, and many artisans were taken to Central Asia.
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Author: Vanessa Chamma
Graduated in Arabic Literature and bachelor's in international relations
Researcher and Author
Lines of Research: History, Middle East, Geopolitics.
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