Sassanian Period

With the accession of Phocas (602) began the great war which shook the two kingdoms. The loss of Edessa, where Narses re volted, was temporary ; but the Roman fortress of Dara fell after nine months' siege (c. 6o5); Harran, Ras al-'Ain and Edessa fol lowed in 607, many of the Christian inhabitants being transported to the Far East, and Chosroes carried the victorious arms of Persia far into the Roman empire. Finally Heraclius turned the tide, and Kavadh II. restored the conquests of his predecessor. The Syrian Christians, however, found that they had only ex changed the domination of a Zoroastrian monarch for an unsym pathetic ecclesiastical despotism. In the confusion that followed, when men of letters had to live and work in exile, Nisibis set up for a time (631-632) a grandson of Chosroes II. Finally all agreed on Yazdegerd III. ; but, while Chosroes II. and Heraclius had been at death grips with each other a great invasion had been preparing in Arabia. (S. L.; H. W. H.) The Arab Conquest.—The Muslim Arab conquest both of 'Iraq (southern Mesopotamia) and of Jazirah (northern Mesopo tamia to Urfa) was rapid and complete. By 64o Heraclius had lost the northern cities. Conversion to Islam became general. The invaders were tolerant by comparison with the Byzantines and the rapid spread of Islam among the conquered was due as much to its simplicity and fashionableness as to the disabilities which it imposed on non-Muslims. An effect of the Arab conquest was the gradual ousting of Syriac by the kindred Arab speech, the language of religion and of government, already well-established in parts of Mesopotamia by the Christian Arab tribes.

The Caliphate.

The religious and political history of Meso potamia during the next six centuries is given elsewhere. (See CALIPHATE, ISLAM, PERSIA.) Here it need only be said that the people of Mesopotamia could not escape the consequences of their geographical position and of the wealth of their country and were involved in the sectarian and political disputes of their Arab lords. The Omayyad Caliph Merwan abandoned Damascus for a Mesopotamian capital at Harran and the Abbassids, whose power was based as much on Persian as on Arab support, ruled Islam from 'Iraq.

Qarbala (Kerbela) in 'Iraq was the scene of the tragedy (68o) which made the great schism in Islam permanent. Qarbala and Nejef are still the great Shiah holy cities and Southern 'Iraq is predominantly Shiah to this day, while the north and the Jazirah are Sunni. Aramaean Christian influences, emanating from Harran, are thought to have contributed to the development of the Mu'tazilite heresy, and the revolutionary Kharijite sects found militant supporters in the Jazirah. But there is no evidence that these occasional civil and religious wars of the first two Muslim centuries seriously damaged the prosperity of the region. The irri gation system of 'Iraq was preserved by the Arabs; the centre of Islam attracted wealth from the outlying provinces and at the beginning of the 9th century no region in the world was wealthier.

Decay set in rapidly. The introduction of black slaves from East Africa for the cultivation of the marshlands of 'Iraq resulted in the long servile "War of the Zanj" (869-883). More fatal was the introduction of the Turkish soldiery, as hardy as Arabs and more amenable to discipline, first as slaves who received a veneer of Mohammedanism in barracks, and later, when Islam had established itself in southern Turan as professional soldiers coming singly or in war-bands to play the part which the Teutonic foederati had played during the Roman decline. Mutasim (833– 847) son of Harun Al-Rashid first formed a Turkish bodyguard and, when his people murmured, transferred his capital to Sa marra.

Ambitious or rebellious governors could hire Turks as well as the Caliphs and political disintegration had begun before the 9th century ended. The Saffarids revolted in Persia ; Ahmad-ibn-Tu lun of Egypt seized part of the Jazirah and Arab Hamdanids and Oqailids followed him. A Byzantine revival under the Macedo nian dynasty threatened the northern borders in the last half of the loth century and the Caliphs, terrorized by their Buwaihid Amirs (practically "Mayors of the Palace"), their sovereignty re stricted to little more than the Euphrates valley, were reduced to the defensive. The Seljuk invasion of Western Asia in the middle of the i ith century rallied Islam but the Seljuk power waned quickly. Their Anatolian Satrapy separated itself from Persia, and the intervening Jazirah became a hunting ground for Turkish princelets (Atabegs) and Crusaders till Zangi expelled the latter from Edessa (1144). But for a generation of ter him the north remained a mosaic of warring Turkish states. The great Kurd Saladin, having checkmated the Franks in Syria, established Egyptian supremacy in northern Mesopotamia, but with his death polyarchy revived. In spite of earlier Karmathian devastations the south was fairly prosperous while the Caliph Nasir (118o 1242) intrigued against the decaying Seljuks with the more vig orous and barbarous rulers of Khwarezm and, when these rude warriors threatened him, called in the Mongols of Jenghiz Khan to destroy the Muslim buffer between him and the disciplined heathen of the north.

The Kingdom of Khwarezm went down in 1219. In 1258 Meso potamia paid for the policy of Nasir. Hulagu Khan, grandson of Jenghiz and ruler of Persia, inspired by his queen and by his gen eral Kitbugha (both Nestorian Christians), picked a quarrel with the last Caliph Mutasim, killed him, sacked Baghdad, and made 'Iraq into a wilderness. Next year it was the turn of the north. Two murderous campaigns wiped out the principalities and most of their populations and the Mongol flood rolled on into Syria.