War Against The Arabs
The Islamic Prophet Muhammad had recently succeeded in unifying all the nomadic tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. The Arab tribes had been too divided in the past to pose a serious military threat to the Byzantines or the Persians. Now unified and animated by their new conversion to Islam, they comprised one of the most powerful states in the region. The first conflict between the Byzantines and Muslims was the Battle of Mu'tah in September 629. A small Muslim skirmishing force attacked the province of Arabia but were repulsed. Because the engagement was a Byzantine victory, there was no apparent reason to make changes to the military configuration of the region. Also, once the severity of the Muslim threat was realized, the Byzantines had little preceding battlefield experience with the Arabs, and even less with zealous soldiers united by a prophet. Even the Strategicon, a manual of war praised for the variety of enemies it covers, does not mention warfare against Arabs at any length.
The following year the Muslims launched raids into the Arabah south of Lake Tiberias, taking Al Karak. Other raids penetrated into the Negev reaching as far as Gaza. Islamic sources record that Heraclius dreamt of the coming Arab invasion. Historian Al-Tabari wrote that Heraclius dreamt of a new kingdom of the "circumcised man" that would be victorious against all its enemies. After telling his court his dream, his patricians, who did not know of the rise of Islam in Arabia, "advised him to send orders to behead every Jew in his dominion."
It was only when a Bedouin trader speaking of a man uniting the tribes of Arabia under a new religion was brought before the Emperor did Heraclius and his court realize that the kingdom of the "circumcised man" was not the Jews but the new Islamic Empire. When the Muslim Arabs attacked Syria and Palestine in 634, he was unable to oppose them personally in battle. Although he remained strategically in charge of operations, his generals failed him in battle. The Battle of Yarmouk in 636 resulted in a crushing defeat for the larger Byzantine army; within three years, the Levant had been lost again. By the time of Heraclius' death, on February 11, 641, most of Egypt had fallen as well.
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