Abstract
Long before the rise of Islam in the seventh century, the Arabs had already established strong relations with al-rum (the Byzantines), who along with al-furs (the Persians) were considered to be the two most powerful empires of late antiquity. As masterfully demonstrated by Irfan Shahid in a number of studies on Arab-Byzantine relations before Islam, several Arab tribes were satisfied with a passive role—that is to say, accepting of the will of both these imperial powers in the Oriens—although many of the most influential tribes, owing mainly to religious affinities, favored the Christian Byzantines. In fact, mostly sedentary and Christian Arab tribes such as the Tanuhkids, the Salihids, and the Ghassanids served as Byzantium’s principal foederati (allies) in the Oriens(Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century, xvi). By signing a foedus(treaty) in return for anonna (allowances), the federate Arabs—especially the Ghassanids of the sixth and early seventh centuries—in addition to forming a “buffer zone” between their allies and their most antagonistic rivals the Persians, were expected to repel anti-Byzantine Arab raiders “from the Peninsula outside the limes [borders].”1
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Notes
For two different views on this issue, see G. E. von Grunebaum’s “Byzantine Iconoclasm and the Influence of the Islamic Environment,” History of Religions 1 (1962): 1–10
Leslie William Barnard’s The Graeco-Roman and Oriental Background of the Iconoclastic (Leiden: Brill, 1974).
Vassilios Christides, “Ibn al-Manqalī (Manglī) and Leo VI: New Evidence on Arabo-Byzantine Ship Construction and Naval Warfare,” Byzantinoslavica 56 (1995): 83–96
Taxiarchis Kolias, “The Taktika of Leo VI the Wise and the Arabs,” Graeco-Arabica 3 (1984): 129–135.
The opening hemistich of this qasida (i.e., al-sayfu asdaqu anba’an min al-kutubi [the sword is truer in telling than books]) has become among the most quoted verses of Arabic poetry. On this poem, see M. M. Badawi’s “The Function of Rhetoric in Medieval Arabic Poetry: Abu Tammam’s Ode on Amorium,” Journal of Arabic Literature 9 (1978): 43–56.
M. Canard once translated them as “Les Greques.” See M. Canard, “Abu Firas,” in Byzance et les Arabes, ed. A. A. Vasiliev (Brussels: Fondation Byzantine, 1950), 349–370.
See S. Bonebakker, “Ibn al-Mu’tazz and Kitáb al-Badi,” in ‘Abbasid Belles-Lettres, vol. 1, ed. J. Ashtiany et al., 388–409 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
See Ioannis Caminiatae, De expugnatione Thessalonicae, ed. G. Böhlig (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1973), and for an English edition, John Kaminiates: The Capture of Thessaloniki, ed. D. Frendo and Athanasios Fotiou (Perth: Bizantina Australiensia 12, 2000).
For an excellent study, see Jaroslav Stetkevych’s The Zephyrs of Najd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabic Nasib (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993).
For more details on the meaning of tadhmin and its place in classical Arabic literature, see Adrian Gully’s “Tadhmin, ‘Implication of Meaning,’ in Medieval Arabic,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 117 (1997): 466–480.
This refers to the presumed reply of Harun al-Rashid to the letter sent by the Byzantine emperor Nicephorus I (d. 803) in which he condemns the truce signed by his predecessor Irene with the Abbasid caliph and he declares not only his refusal to pay a tribute to the caliph but also his readiness to settle the matter with the sword. The insulting reply of al-Rashid starts as follows: “From Harun al-Rashid, Commander of the Faithful to Nicephorus kalb al-rum, the dog of the Romans.” For more on this letter, see Hugh Kennedy’s “Byzantine-Arab Diplomacy in the Near East from the Islamic Conquests to the Mid-Eleventh Century,” in Byzantine Diplomacy, ed. J. Shepard and S. Franklin (Aldershot, UK: Variorum, 1992), 133–143.
Interestingly enough, scholar Gustave E. von Grunebaum did not refer to Ibn Hazm’s poem. Indeed, while introducing the Byzantine polemical poem and the Muslim response(s), he did not allude even in passing to Ibn Hazm. There is no question, however, that by translating the two poems into German, Grunebaum’s effort is foundational, to say the least. See Gustave E. von Grunebaum, “Eine Poetische Polemik Zwischen Byzanz und Bagdad im X. Jahrhundert,” in Islam and Medieval Hellenism: Social and Cultural Perspectives, ed. Dunning S. Wilson (London: Variorum Reprints, 1976), 43–64.
For an exhaustive non-Muslim study of Muslim tahara, see Ze’ev Maghen’s “Strangers and Brothers: The Ritual Status of Unbelievers in Islamic Jurisprudence,” Medieval Encounters 12 (2006): 173–223.
See also Christine Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
For an excellent study of the accounts of the massacre at Jerusalem, see Benjamin Z. Kedar, “The Jerusalem Massacre of July in the Western Historiography of the Crusades,” Crusades 3 (2004): 15–76.
See Daniella Talmon-Heller’s “Muslim Martyrdom and Quest for Martyrdom in the Crusading Period,” Al-Masaq: Islam and the Medieval Mediterranean 14 (2002): 131–139.
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© 2012 Nizar F. Hermes
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Hermes, N.F. (2012). Poetry, Frontiers, and Alterity: Views and Perceptions of Al-Rum (Byzantines) and Al-Ifranja (Franks). In: The [European] Other in Medieval Arabic Literature and Culture. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137081650_5
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