Friday, March 29, 2024
05:27 PM (GMT +5)

Go Back   CSS Forums > General > News & Articles > Dawn

Reply Share Thread: Submit Thread to Facebook Facebook     Submit Thread to Twitter Twitter     Submit Thread to Google+ Google+    
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Search this Thread
  #1  
Old Saturday, February 20, 2016
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: "Land of the Pure"
Posts: 258
Thanks: 64
Thanked 94 Times in 79 Posts
mazhar mehmood is on a distinguished road
Default The end of empires: Islamic History

The end of empires



WHEN Muslim armies boiled out of the Arabian desert and won a string of stunning victories in the seventh century, believers were convinced that they owed this success to divine intervention.

But apart from their speed, tactics and zeal, the Muslim armies benefited from other factors as well. In his brilliant book In the Shadow of the Sword, Tom Holland recounts the fall of the Persian and Roman empires and the rise of Islam, and describes this convergence of events as the end of the ancient world.

In 541, around a century before the great Muslim conquests, a deadly plague swept across much of Rome’s eastern empire centred on Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) and Iranshahr, or the Persian Empire. In those days, Egypt was Rome’s granary, and grain ships from Alexandria fed millions.

How to explain these multiple crises.
But that year, these ships brought more than grain: in the holds were rats that bore plague-carrying fleas. This deadly pestilence soon began ravaging cities, towns and villages across the empire. From Constantinople, the epidemic spread swiftly to Europe, Mesopotamia and Persia. Although few records were kept, it is estimated that a third of the population of the lands visited by the plague died in a particularly horrible way.

Even after the pestilence had subsided, it continued to cast a long shadow: the price of labour rose, tax collection fell sharply, and it became difficult to find recruits for the Roman legions. Entire regions had been denuded of their populations, and in once-prosperous villages, wolves howled in the wilderness.

But this was not the only crisis Rome faced: possible environmental changes in the steppes of Central Asia caused the Huns to seek better land. As they moved into Eastern Europe, they pushed other tribes into the western provinces of the Roman Empire, putting great pressure on the stretched legions. How to explain these multiple crises? Most people believed that they were due to God’s anger.

In 600 AD, the pestilence returned to Jerusalem and its surrounding areas, once again decimating the population. But the tribes of Arabia had remained insulated from the ravages of the plague, with the desert serving as a buffer zone. One contemporary Roman described the situation thus:

“[While] once countless military units had dwindled in number, the plague, that ally of war, had not so much as touched the rancorous tribes.”

As a result of falling tax revenues and manpower, the defences along the Arabian desert were virtually abandoned, with the Romans focusing on their traditional foe, the Persian Empire. In 606 AD, the Persians besieged the Roman fort city of Dara, and after taking it three years later, advanced on Anatolia and Jerusalem. By 615, all of Syria and Palestine were in Persian hands.

Heraclius, the Roman emperor, decided on a risky counterstroke in which he led a task force north across the Armenian mountains into Persia. Here, after a series of victories, he entered into a secret agreement with one of Khusrow’s generals who killed the Persian emperor, and signed a peace agreement with the Romans, thus ending the great war in 628.

This titanic struggle had greatly drained both mighty empires, a factor that contributed significantly to the Arab victory over a Roman task force near Gaza in 634 AD. Settlements, unprotected by Roman legions and decimated by the plague, surrendered in quick succession. Traditionally, Rome had dealt with Arab raiders by paying them off, but this time, it was different.

A third factor contributing to the defeat of the Roman armies was the virtual absence of the Ghassanids from the field. This was a powerful Arab Christian tribe that had prospered over the centuries, acting as an auxiliary force for Rome. In return for patrolling the borders of the desert, Ghassanid rulers were given titles and gold.

The tribe followed an early strain of Christianity known as Monophysitism, and this brought them into conflict with the orthodox Byzantium church. Ultimately, they were defeated by the armies of Islam, and many moved into the Levant. Once a powerful force in the region, few remember their name now.

However, to one keen student of Islamic history, the lesson from the fate of the Ghassanids was clear: Osama bin Laden, in a recording sent to Al Jazeera, declared that if Muslims were to work for the benefit of foreign patrons, “We would also be like our forefathers, the Al Ghassaniah. The concerns of their elders was to be appointed officers for the Byzantines, and to be named kings in order to safeguard the interests of the Byzantines by killing their brothers of the peninsula’s Arabs. Such is the case of the new Al Ghassaniah; namely, Arab rulers.”

Specifically, Bin Laden was accusing the Saudi ruling family of being toadies of the Americans, and serving their interests at the cost of their own people. Now, as the Americans gradually withdraw from the Middle East, will the House of Saud fade into history, much as the Ghassanids have done?


Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2016
__________________
"Allah is sufficient for us;an excellent guardian is He!
Reply With Quote
The Following User Says Thank You to mazhar mehmood For This Useful Post:
Khanum (Saturday, February 20, 2016)
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
latest MCQs on C.A and General knowledge sono punam Current Affairs 2 Friday, November 22, 2019 11:16 PM
Islamic Banking IMTIAZ AHMAD KHAN Banking Jobs 0 Thursday, February 14, 2013 02:51 AM
Is there a possibility of Islamic nations block in Asia Maroof Hussain Chishty Discussion 15 Thursday, August 05, 2010 11:45 PM
A breif history about Museum Muhammad Adnan General Knowledge, Quizzes, IQ Tests 4 Friday, February 16, 2007 05:01 PM
The true religion Saira Islamiat 0 Friday, October 13, 2006 10:06 PM


CSS Forum on Facebook Follow CSS Forum on Twitter

Disclaimer: All messages made available as part of this discussion group (including any bulletin boards and chat rooms) and any opinions, advice, statements or other information contained in any messages posted or transmitted by any third party are the responsibility of the author of that message and not of CSSForum.com.pk (unless CSSForum.com.pk is specifically identified as the author of the message). The fact that a particular message is posted on or transmitted using this web site does not mean that CSSForum has endorsed that message in any way or verified the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any message. We encourage visitors to the forum to report any objectionable message in site feedback. This forum is not monitored 24/7.

Sponsors: ArgusVision   vBulletin, Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.