The Great Arab Conquests (36 page)
Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
This mosaic of Emperor Justinian I (527-65) and his court from San Vitale, Ravenna, shows Byzantine imperial style. Stately, almost motionless, the Emperor is in civilian clothes and surrounded by his retinue of officials, soldiers and clergy. (© San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy/The Bridgeman Art Library)
The last Sasanian shāh Yazdgard III (632-51) is depicted on this silver gilt plate. In contrast to Justinian, he is depicted as a mighty hunter and warrior pursuing his prey on a galloping horse. (Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France/Flammarion/The Bridgeman Art Library)
TOP Mushabbak Church (Syria). The sixth-century basilical church in northern Syria is typical of the hundreds built for congregational worship in what was a profoundly Christian country before the Muslim conquest. (Author)
ABOVE Fire-temple Konur Siyah (Fars, Iran). Zoroastrian fire-temples like this one were constructed to shelter the sacred fire under the main dome and to accommodate the priests who tended the fire. Zoroastrianism was the official religion of the Sasanian Empire. (Author)
TOP Taqi-kisrā (Iraq); photograph taken in 1901, after the collapse of much of the palace in the 1880s. The iwãn (arch) of the great palace at Ctesiphon, capital of the Sasanian Empire, was probably built by the last great Sasanian shāh, Chosroes II (d. 628). The victorious Muslims used it as their first mosque and prayed surrounded by the statues of former Persian monarchs. (Royal Geographical Society/The Bridgeman Art Library)
ABOVE The ruin of the Marib dam, Yemen. The final collapse of the dam in the late sixth century was symbolic of the decay of the old kingdom of Himyar, which had dominated Yemen in the centuries before the coming of Islam. (Author)
This seventh-century Sasanian helmet shows the rich military equipment typical of the Persian army. Arab writers like to contrast the ostentation of the Persians with their own simple arms. (Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Mainz. Inv. O.38823.)
This richly decorated Sasanian sword would have been worn by the aristocrats who led the Persian armies. (British Museum, London. Inv. BM 135738)
David confronts Goliath, from the ‘David Plates’. These Byzantine silver plates illustrate the triumph of David over Goliath and depict the arms and armour of Byzantine troops in about 600, a metal breastplate with protective strips or scales covering his arms and skirt. (The Metropolita Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917 (17.190.396) Photograph © 2000)
Modern sketch of an early eighth-century wall-painting, depicting a swing-beam siege engine in operation, probably being used by Muslims attacking Samarqand. The Arab conquests in Transoxania witnessed a series of hard-fought sieges. (Tile fragment from the Hermitage, St Petersburg Drawing by Guitty Azarpay, in Sogdian Painting, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981, p. 65)
TOP Wadi Du
c
ān. Not all the early Arab conquerors were tent-dwelling nomads. Many were village people from settlements like this one in Yemen. They played a major but often forgotten role in the conquests of Iraq and Egypt. (Author)
c
ān. Not all the early Arab conquerors were tent-dwelling nomads. Many were village people from settlements like this one in Yemen. They played a major but often forgotten role in the conquests of Iraq and Egypt. (Author)
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