When Sulayman came to the throne in 715, the Muslim year 100 (ad 718) was fast approaching and this was trumpeted as the year when Muslim rule would triumph across the known world. Hoping to fulfill this prediction, Sulayman pledged: “I shall not cease from the struggle with Constantinople until either I conquer it or I destroy the entire dominion of the Arabs in trying.”4 The caliph's brother, Maslama, was to mastermind the expedition. He mustered a huge army and built 5,000 ships, which he filled with troops and provisions. He assembled 12,000 workmen, 6,000 camels, which he loaded with
FIGURE 6.2 Wall paintings from the Umayyad palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Gharbi, northeast of Damascus, showing court musicians and mounted archer in Persian style. © National Museum of Damascus.
Weaponry and catapults, and 6,000 mules for transporting provisions. On top of this, 3,000 volunteers signed up to supplement the regular soldiers; they belonged, according to a Syrian source, “to the class of Arabs without possessions,” and presumably they went along in the hope of gaining divine credit and earthly spoils. Arab financiers provided mounts for the troops on the basis of hire or sale in the expectation of being recompensed from the booty to be extracted from the imperial city. As with previous attempts on
FIGURE 6.3 External view of the Umayyad palace of Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi in the Syrian desert, east of Damascus. Photo (EA. CA.549) by K. A. C. Creswell © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
Constantinople, the attack was to be two-pronged: Sulayman ibn Mu'adh was to proceed by land and 'Umar ibn Hubayra by sea.
After an extended march to the city of Amorium in west central Anatolia, Sulayman encountered there the Byzantine general Leo. He reached an understanding with the Arabs, leading them to believe that he would help them capture Constantinople, and in return Maslama gave orders that no one should do any harm in Leo's region, “not even taking a loaf of bread.” For his part, Leo commanded that a traveling market should be loaded up for the Arabs, and the Byzantines bought and sold in good faith and without fear. Leo's real aim was to seize the imperial office for himself, as he thought that he was best qualified to protect Byzantium from the Arabs, but inevitably Byzantine citizens who saw him in the company of enemy troops were very nervous of his intentions. At Amorium, he went right up to the walls and spoke with the leaders and the foremost men of the city, explaining to them that his objective was not at all to betray the Byzantines and that his relationship with Maslama was a pretense designed to save his country from destruction. Perceiving that Leo was indeed the man best suited to be emperor they exchanged with him oaths of allegiance. Troops dispatched by Emperor Theodosius happened to arrive shortly thereafter with orders to kill Leo, but when they reached the latter’s camp and the two armies met, the Byzantines on Leo’s side and those who had been sent by Theodosius agreed unanimously to crown Leo. Then they all marched to the imperial city where the citizens welcomed them with a festive escort and deposed Theodosius in the spring of 717.
In the meantime, the main body of the Arab troops had spent the winter of 716-17 in Anatolia, while Maslama had sent Sulayman ibn Mu'adh with 12,000 men to lay siege to the city of Chalcedon, on the east side of the Bosphorus facing Constantinople, in order to cut off supplies from that approach to the capital and to lay waste and pillage Byzantine territory in general (Map 4.1). When Maslama heard that Leo had become emperor he was overjoyed, supposing that the latter would soon find an opportunity to fulfill his promise and deliver the city to him, and Leo wrote constantly to Maslama, encouraging him in these vain hopes. At the same time, he was fortifying the city, gathering into it plenty of supplies and readying ships for combat. Furthermore, he came to a financial arrangement with the Bulgars so that they would assist in the defense of the city. Eventually Maslama realized Leo’s deceit and he made ready his army and his ships, and in June of 717 he crossed over into Europe. Leo, for his part, had received intelligence about Maslama’s movements and he sent men to scorch the earth in the whole region to the west of the city and to cut off the roads by which provisions were brought to the Arab army from Syria.
Maslama’s army erected a huge camp outside the west walls of the city, opposite the southern (Golden) Gate (Figure 6.4). They dug a wide trench between the camp and the city, and another one behind it, between the camp and the Bulgars, and they protected the whole by building a breast-high parapet of dry stone. On the first of September the naval support arrived: “enormous ships, military transports, and light ships to the number of 1800.” However, the wind then dropped and the big ships,
FIGURE 6.4 View of Theodosian walls of Constantinople (as seen ca. 1930). © Ian Richmond.
Heavily laden, found themselves becalmed. Leo had prepared for this eventuality and sent against them fire-bearing vessels. The Arab armada was a sitting target: “some ships were cast up burning by the sea walls, others sank to the bottom with their crews, and others were swept away in flames.” Unfortunately the winter of 717—18 proved particularly harsh: “so much snow fell that the ground was made invisible for a hundred days.” With provisions now in short supply the Arab troops were in a perilous situation, and matters were made worse by the frequent deadly stealth attacks of the Bulgars, whom the Arabs came to fear more than the Byzantines. They dreaded going back without their caliph's permission and in any case the sea was so rough that it prevented them from leaving. “Constrained thus on every side, with the spectre of death before their eyes, they abandoned all hope.” As for Maslama, he deluded the Arab army with the promise that very soon the Byzantines would surrender the city and that donations and supplies would arrive from Syria.
The Byzantines had inflicted such deprivation on the Arabs that they had begun to eat dead animals and dung. In the Arab camp, a measure of wheat had reached the price of ten gold coins and a head of livestock was being sold for two or three gold coins. Many of them used to walk down to the ships and tear off a piece of pitch and chew on it all day long. While they were in these dire straits, the caliph Sulayman died, and so did his son, to whom the Arabs had sworn allegiance as his father’s successor. Succession passed instead to 'Umar, a nephew of the caliph 'Abd al-Malik, a softly spoken man with a reputation for piety and sincerity. As soon as he became ruler, he put all his energies into rescuing those Arabs trapped in the Byzantine Empire. First, he arranged for fleets to bring them supplies; 400 transporters laden with grain made their way to Constantinople from Egypt and a further 360 transporters came with arms and provisions from Africa. However, on their arrival some of the Egyptian Christian crew sneaked out by night on skiffs, sought refuge in the city, and apprised its inhabitants of the two Arab fleets hidden in the bay. At once Leo dispatched light boats with fire-throwing equipment, and these were able to sink some ships and put the rest to flight. Laden with what cargo they could salvage from the wrecks, the Byzantine crews returned in triumph to Constantinople.
On receiving news of this, 'Umar concluded that he had no recourse but to call off the siege. He sent an envoy bearing a stern letter to Maslama, in which he warned against causing the ruin of the Arab army and ordered him to decamp. Maslama at first tried to conceal the command from the troops, but they came to know what the caliph had ordered and proclaimed it publicly throughout the camp: “Caliph 'Umar has commanded you to leave and to return to your own country.” In the summer of 718 they began their long journey home. Some looked to leave by sea and embarked on the remaining ships, but even then they were harried, for a storm overtook them and sank most of the ships. The survivors clung to the wreckage and were driven over to the shores of the country of Thrace while others ended up on remote isles and were marooned there. Caliph 'Umar sent troops with mules and horses to escort those who had come away by land, for all their livestock had either been eaten or perished of starvation.5 He also sent food
And money, and he issued a call throughout his empire to everyone who had a brother or other relative in the army under Maslama's command to accompany him home. “Many went out to meet them and did all they could do to save them.”
World History
