THE GREAT CONQUESTS 25In the first quarter of the seventh century, the empire engaged in a war
of twenty-six years with the Sassanid Persians. For much of that time,
Persian armies had occupied the vital Byzantine provinces of Egypt, Syria,
and Anatolia. Even denied the taxes and revenues of these core areas, the
Byzantines still held the great city, kept a mobile field army, and main-
tained the greatest fleet in the Mediterranean. The Emperor Heraclius, who
would face the Muslims in Syria, had employed a wonderfully adept com-
bination of offensive and defensive strategies to battle the Persian hosts.
The end of this great war came in 628. Heraclius had moved his army
from the Lebanese coast to the eastern extremity of the Black Sea. There,
with hired Hunnic mercenaries, he had defeated the Persians in their heart-
land and dictated peace.
Heraclius and the empire were thus at their height when the Muslims
came into the scene. And yet, for all of its power, the Byzantine Empire
had serious weaknesses. The lack of imperial authority in the key Syrian,
Egyptian, and Anatolian provinces had crippled the bureaucracy. The local
residents were beginning to lose their identity as imperial subjects. The
army brought in no recruits from these provinces, and so when the Byz-
antine army did appear, it was as foreign as that of the Arabs. Money was
also a problem. War expenses and disruption of the tax base made it
difficult to keep the armies and fleets paid. Byzantine armies expected to
be paid and paid regularly. They were not like the Arabs that they would
soon face.
Finally, a deep schism existed in the Christian world, and the Byzantine
throne permitted its bishops to persecute heretics rather than to persuade
them. When the Arabs moved against the Empire, generally the Muslims
would be seen as liberators and not conquerors because of the religious
intolerance within the Byzantine Empire. The sophisticated Byzantines
enjoyed no comfort and little support from their religion, while to their
enemies, the new faith of Islam gave a coherence and zeal that propelled
them and magnified their commitment.
The earliest Muslim attack on Syria was in 629, while Muhammad was
still alive. What may have been a mere raid met resistance—probably
only local Arab tribes with a small Byzantine column—at the Battle of
Mota. In this affair the Muslims were turned back with heavy losses, and
Zeid ibn Haritha, the Prophet’s son, was slain.
From 629 on, Syria became the main target of Islamic expansion. This
may have been because the Arabs were eager to avenge Zeid’s death. It
may also be that they were familiar with the riches of the province because
annual caravans traded with Mecca and Medina. It may have been that
they considered the enemy weak, because the Persians had occupied the