Book contents
- Front Matter
- CONTENTS
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Chapter 1 The problem of Byzantium and the early Islamic conquests
- Chapter 2 The Byzantine Empire in an era of accelerating change
- Chapter 3 Difficulties in devising defenses for Syria
- Chapter 4 The first Muslim penetrations of Byzantine territory
- Chapter 5 Early tests in southern Palestine
- Chapter 6 Problems of cohesion: the battle of Jābiya- Yarmūk reconsidered
- Chapter 7 The brief struggle to save northern Syria and Byzantine Mesopotamia
- Chapter 8 Byzantium, Armenia, Armenians, and early Islamic conquests
- Chapter 9 Controversy and confidence in the seventh-century crisis
- Appendix 1 Author and date of the anti-jewish treatise
- Chapter 10 Elements of failure and endurance
- Bibliography
- Index
Chapter 6 - Problems of cohesion: the battle of Jābiya- Yarmūk reconsidered
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Front Matter
- CONTENTS
- List of illustrations
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Chapter 1 The problem of Byzantium and the early Islamic conquests
- Chapter 2 The Byzantine Empire in an era of accelerating change
- Chapter 3 Difficulties in devising defenses for Syria
- Chapter 4 The first Muslim penetrations of Byzantine territory
- Chapter 5 Early tests in southern Palestine
- Chapter 6 Problems of cohesion: the battle of Jābiya- Yarmūk reconsidered
- Chapter 7 The brief struggle to save northern Syria and Byzantine Mesopotamia
- Chapter 8 Byzantium, Armenia, Armenians, and early Islamic conquests
- Chapter 9 Controversy and confidence in the seventh-century crisis
- Appendix 1 Author and date of the anti-jewish treatise
- Chapter 10 Elements of failure and endurance
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
… when the cavalry wing is broken, the infantry is outflanked, nor does there remain any means or will to defend itself, and thus having lost courage the infantry throw their arms on the ground and beg for mercy.
Raimondo Montecuccoli, Memorie (Colonia, Ferrara, 1704), xxvii, p. 37JĀBIYA
After their victory at Faḥl (Pella), the Muslims rapidly penetrated north. Damascus surrendered to them. Forces of Abū ‘Ubayda pushed on to seize Heraclius’ former base of operations at Ḥimṣ, ancient Emesa. Its occupation threatened the rich Biqā ‘valley as well as the heart of Byzantine Syria, the Orontes valley, and opened the way for expansion even further northwards. Muslims did raid into the Biqā’. In early 636 their occupation of Damascus and Ḥimṣ brought matters to a decisive military test. The strong Byzantine response involved the collection and dispatch of the maximum number of available troops under major Byzantine commanders, including the sacellarius [certain] and possibly also cubicularius Theodore Trithurios and the Armenian Generl Vahān, to eject the Muslims from their newly won territories.
The climax of the early Muslim invasions of the Byzantine Empire was, according to Muslim and Christian sources, the battle of Jābiya-Yarmāk.
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- Byzantium and the Early Islamic Conquests , pp. 112 - 146Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992