History of Jihad against the Byzantine Christians of Syria, Jordan and Turkey (634-1453)

Islam Watch 13 September 2012

How the Jihad ravaged Christian Byzantium for 800 years, and how valiantly the Byzantine Christians held back the Arab and Turkish hordes, saving Europe from Islam.

While the Zoroastrian Persians were defeated and were being subjugated, the Muslim hordes turned on their other neighbor the Christian Byzantines and two armies met at the battlefield of Heiromyak.

Lessons from the Battle of Heiromyak (Al Yarmuk)

At the Battle of the Yarmuk (river), between the Muslim Arabs and the Byzantines, the Muslim Arabs were losing the battle in the initial stages. When the victory seemed certain for the Byzantines, the Muslims took recourse to subterfuge, when they realized that victory could not come to them through straight warfare, they used a contingent of women to attack the Byzantine troops who charged at the Byzantine army shrieking and hollering. Not used to facing ladies as an adversary, the Byzantines were at a loss to respond and the confused Byzantine generals ordered their troops not to molest the women and to withdraw.
When the Arab Muslims saw that this tactic using women as a deceptive front was working, they sent in the main contingent of Arab men dressed as women in hijabs (the black tent like gown worn by Muslim women) to charge at the Byzantines, and in the process one of the Arab generals Khalid-ibn-Walid disguised as a woman in a hijab, embraced the Byzantine General Harbees and crushed his ribs, thus killing him. With their general dead, the Byzantine army became leaderless, and the fortunes of the battle started going in favor of the Muslim Arabs. This is how the tricky and insidious Muslims won the battle of Yarmuk. Another example of Allah intervening to give the Muslims victory in war (sic)!With their guileful victory at Heiromyak, the Muslim wasted no time in fanning out in to the now defenseless Syria, and started storming one town after another making their way first to Jerusalem and then onwards to Bethlehem, Nazareth, Tiberias, Cana, Tyre, Sidon Damascus to the Byzantine mercantile capital in the Levant – the metropolis of Caesarea. In those days Caesarea was a strongly fortified by twins tier of walls with innumerable turrets. These had been built to stave of the repeated Persian (Sassanid) assaults that were launched at it. Because of the strong battlements, the Sassanids failed to take Caesarea, but that could not prevent the lustful eyes of the Muslims from falling on this prosperous city.

Lessons from the Battles of Caesarea, Babylon (a city in Byzantine Egypt), and Alexandria

When the Muslims reached Caesarea, they tried to take the city by storm, but were repulsed. They set down to a lengthy siege, but that too proved ineffective. Caesarea, which was then a bustling city of more than 300 busy streets. It was a port city and so the siege could not be complete on the sea facing side of the city, which continued to receive supplies and reinforcements from Constantinople. Here the Arab Muslims who had besieged the city had observed that some men furtively made their way from the city walls during some nights. The Muslims waylaid these men and to their delight they turned out to be Bedouins who although non-Muslims were of the same ethnic stock as the Muslim Arabs.

These Bedouins were in the employ of the Byzantines had as sweepers at Caesarea. Now as captives in the hands of their Arab compatriots, they did not take long to crack and fall prey to the threats and bribes of their Arab compatriots. These sweepers decided to betray their Byzantine masters and showed the Arab Muslim besiegers the way to infiltrate into Caesarea through its sewers.

The Byzantine Christian city of Caesarea had walls that were sixteen feet high with many turrets and had withstood the Arab Muslim siege for more than eight months, so the Muslims used this devious way to infiltrate the city and once inside they ruthlessly slaughtered its determined inhabitants to the last man, except for a few who managed to reach the port and board the ships and flee to safety. So much for allah giving them victory. This proves that Arab Muslims can stoop to any depth to gain a victory which they allege some allah helps them. (...)