Siege of Damascus (634) - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Greek, Jonah, who had helped Khalid enter the city by the East Gate, showed him a short-cut to Antioch. Leading a cavalry regiment, Khalid caught up with a convoy of Byzantine refugees from Damascus at the sea, near Antioch. The three day truce had passed; Khalid's cavalry attacked the convoy during a heavy rain. In the subsequent battle, Khalid reportedly killed both Thomas and Harbees in a duel. After the Battle, known as Battle of Marj-ud-Deebaj (Battle of Brocade Meadow), the Muslims took a great amount of brocade taken as booty. In addition, Thomas' wife, the daughter of Heraclius, was captured. According to chronicles, the Greek man Jonah, who guided Khalid on the short cut to Antioch, got his fiance, but she committed suicide. Khalid offered Jonah the daughter of Emperor Heraclius, whom he refused. Khalid sent back to her father. Jonah died two years later in the Battle of Yarmuk.

Caliph Abu Bakr died in Madinah, making Umar his successor. Umar removed Khalid from command of the Muslim army and appointed Abu Ubaidah as the new commander in chief. In later years, following the Battle of Yarmuk, the Rashidun Caliphate annexed the whole Levant, followed by the conquest of Antioch in 638. By 639, the Byzantines had lost Armenia and Mesopotamia. Emperor Heraclius concentrated on the defenses of Egypt and Anatolia, creating a buffer-zone in Anatolia west of Caesarea by abandoning all the Byzantine fortifications. The Muslims never invaded Anatolia. However, by 642 the Byzantines lost Egypt and Tripolitania to the Caliphate.

While the Arabs administered the city of Damascus, the population of Damascus remained mostly Christian—Eastern Orthodox and Monophysite—with a growing community of Arab Muslims from Makkah, Madinah, and the Syrian Desert.

The city was chosen as the capital of Islamic Syria. Its first Muslim governor was Yazid ibn Abu Sufyan, one of the commanders of the Muslim army that captured the city. Yazid died of plague in 640 and his younger brother, Mu'awiya I, succeeded him. After the murder of the last Rashidun Caliph, Caliph Ali in 661, Mu'awiya installed himself as the caliph of the Islamic empire founding the Umayyad dynasty.

Damascus subsequently became the capital of the Ummayad Caliphate and all of the surplus revenue of the Ummayad Caliphate's provinces were forwarded to the treasury of Damascus. Arabic was also established as the official language, giving the Arab minority of the city an advantage over the Greek-speaking Christians in administrative affairs.

Trade and economics prospered in the city and under the Umayyads, Damascus remained one of the most dazzling cities of the world, until in 750, when it fell to Abbasids. On August 25, 750, the Abbasids, having already beaten the Umayyads in the Battle of the Zab in Iraq, conquered Damascus after facing little resistance. With the heralding of the Abbasid Caliphate, Damascus became eclipsed and subordinated by Baghdad, the new Islamic capital.