This is the second article in a three-series on the geopolitical, social and religious backdrop to the rise of Islam in the 7th century, what it historically reveals and how it contextualizes against narratives of extremists and critics. Read the first part here.
Historians have marveled at how the dramatic turns of the Roman-Persian war, in the era of the rise of Islam, is incredibly predicted by verses 3-5 of chapter 30 (The Romans) of the Holy Quran: The Romans have been defeated in the land nearby, and they after their defeat will be victorious, in a few years…
The Persian badgering of Rome (besieged by internal dissent and discord) began around 600 CE by knocking out Dara, a vital point in the Roman defensive system in northern Mesopotamia. With Persia emboldened and Rome buckling under internal revolts, the scales tipped heavily in favor of the Persians— …cities in Mesopotamia fell like dominoes with Edessa capitulating in 605…then the great city of Antioch in Syria fell in 610 followed by Emesa and then Damascus itself in 613. Egypt, too, would fall later. Things got worse: after defeating a Roman counter-attack in Asia-minor the Shah’s armies turned east toward Jerusalem—the prize, heart and soul of Christendom. The aim was obvious: capture the most holy city in Christendom and, in doing so, assert the cultural and religious triumph of Persia. (The Silk Roads by Peter Frankopan).
Director of Byzantine studies at Oxford, Peter Frankopan’s book “The Silk Roads” details historical record and development in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic era
When Jerusalem fell in 614, the Christian world fell into utter shock and hysteria. The Holy Cross, Christianity’s greatest symbol at the time, was taken down and carried off to Persia. The humiliation was complete— Khusraw wanted to see him (Heraclius) brought in chains to the foot of his throne and was not prepared to give him peace until he abjured his crucified god and embraced the worship of the sun (Historian’s History of the World).
Persian armies were camped within visual distance of Constantinople. Roman emperor Heraclius, desperately dispatched envoys to Persia to seek peace at any terms. Khusraw II listened to them and then had them executed. The world considered this as the defeat of Rome (and Roman Christianity).
In this backdrop, to make a prophecy (reportedly in 616) as Muhammad did that Rome will be victorious again, was beyond human intuition and calculation, and nothing could be greater against the odds at the time— In the midst of the Persian triumphs he (Muhammad) ventured to foretell that many years would elapse and victory will return to the Roman banners…at the time when this prediction is said to have been delivered, no prophecy could be more distant from its fulfillment (Rise, Decline & Fall of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon).
Edward Gibbon, in his book, marveled at the Quran prophecy of the defeat of Rome and her dramatic comeback
Rome was gripped with frenzy and desperation—government salaries were halved, welfare programs ceased and precious metals seized in a frantic bid to boost the exchequer. Heraclius modified coinage with an image of the cross to convey the fight for the life of their faith. And, just as the Quran predicted, it would take a few years before the dramatic reversal of fortune began.
Repeated attempts to breach Constantinople failed and the Persian commitment began to sag. The nomadic alliance in the Persian front suffered disunity and withdrew. Rapid conquests by the Persians had stretched resources thin and left key lands exposed; the Turks took advantage and launched attacks in caucuses leading the Persians to pull back from Constantinople. Heraclius, in an astonishing counter-attack, tore after the retreating army and forged an alliance with the Turks dealing a severe blow to the Persian front. Moving south, he then crushed a large Persian army near Nineveh. Bad became worse for the Persians: Khusraw was murdered and a senior general in the Persian army made a bid for the throne while dealing with Heraclius conceding territory and offering settlements. Khusraw’s son and successor (and possibly his murderer) also made key concessions and settlements handing back territories to Rome, including of course, Jerusalem. The Persian leadership fell into disarray and lost most of their gains back to Rome.
Peter Frankopan writes: Heraclius celebrated the reversal of fortune with gusto…he had relied heavily on religion to build support during Rome’s darkest hours. He had a letter read out loud written by the Shah himself which not only ridiculed Heraclius but scoffed at the powerlessness of the Christian God: this had been a war of religion.
Super powers and super wars in the early Islamic era
Unfortunately, Roman triumph was no better for religious freedom. Soon, reprisals and scapegoating began blaming minorities for the bid to hand Rome over to Persia. Heraclius himself attended a ceremony in Jerusalem restoring fragments of the Holy Cross he had won back in settlements with the Persians. Then, he had Jews baptized by force (those who refused had to flee, barred from entering Jerusalem) as payback for the role they were thought to have played in the fall of the city to the Persians. Eastern Christians, who had long-standing doctrinal conflicts with Romans, were also required to sign up for the Nicaean creed. This grand theater of war between two super-powers of the time, underwritten by religious claims, naturally spilled into the bordering Arabian Peninsula.
According to Frankopan, historical record speaks of a leading political figure from Mecca who approached Constantinople with a request for nomination as the guardian of the city and Rome’s representative. A parallel act of control and influence had the Persians make a similar appointment at Medina-- the region (Arabia) had been all but untouched by the fighting between the Romans and Persians. In fact, the southwest heel of Arabia had long been a crucible of confrontation between Rome and Persia, where less than a century earlier the kingdom of Himyar and the cities of Mecca and Medina had thrown in their lot with Persia against the Christian coalition and Himyar's deadly Red Sea rival, Ethiopia.
At this time, immediately precipitating the rise of Islam, no one could imagine how the world was about to transform. In a matter of decades, Rome and Persia both would enter the annals of antiquity. It was not just borders and empires that were about to be transformed, but thought, ideology and psychology:
And yet, at the moment of the triumph of Christianity, chance intervened. A platform had been laid for a spiritual conquest that would not just connect towns and regions, but span continents. It was like unleashing the internet in late antiquity: suddenly a new raft of ideas, theories and trends threatened to undermine the existing order. The name of the new cosmology did not reflect how revolutionary it was. Closely related to the words for safety and peace, “Islam” gave little sense of how the world was about to change. Revolution had arrived.
Read the next and final part here.