| Battle of Nikiou | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Muslim conquest of Egypt (Arab–Byzantine Wars) | |||||||
 Amr Mosque in Cairo commemorating Muslim victories in Egypt over the Byzantines | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Rashidun Caliphate | Byzantine Empire | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Amr ibn al-A'as | Manuel | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 15,000 | 20,000 | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Heavy | Heavy | ||||||
The Battle of Nikiou took place between Arab Muslim troops under General Amr ibn al-A'as and the Byzantine Empire in Egypt in May of 646. [1]
Following their victory at the Battle of Heliopolis in July 640, and the subsequent capitulation of Alexandria in November 641, Arab troops had taken over what was the Roman province of Egypt. The newly installed Eastern Roman Emperor Constans II was determined to retake the land, and ordered a large fleet to carry troops to Alexandria. These troops, under Manuel, took the city by surprise from its small Arab garrison towards the end of 645 in an amphibious attack. In 645, the Byzantine thus temporarily won Alexandria back. [2] Amr at the time might have been in Mecca, and was quickly recalled to take command of the Arab forces in Egypt. [3]
The battle took place at the small fortified town of Nikiou (Coptic : ⲡϣⲁϯPashati), [4] about two-thirds of the way from Alexandria to Fustat, [5] with the Arab forces numbering around 15,000, against a smaller Byzantine force. The Arabs prevailed, and the Byzantine forces retreated in disarray, back to Alexandria. [1]
Although the Byzantines closed the gates against the pursuing Arabs, the city of Alexandria eventually fell to the Arabs, who stormed the city sometime in the summer of that year. The defeat of Manuel's forces marked the last attempt by the Byzantine Empire to recapture Egypt for some 500 years, with only Emperor Manuel I Komnenos sending a failed expedition there in the 12th century. [6] [7]
The 640s decade ran from January 1, 640, to December 31, 649.
Year 640 (DCXL) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 640 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Year 646 (DCXLVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 646 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Manuel I Komnenos, Latinized as Comnenus, also called Porphyrogenitus, was a Byzantine emperor of the 12th century who reigned over a crucial turning point in the history of Byzantium and the Mediterranean. His reign saw the last flowering of the Komnenian restoration, during which the Byzantine Empire had seen a resurgence of its military and economic power and had enjoyed a cultural revival.
Heraclius, known by the diminutive Heraclonas or Heracleonas, and sometimes called Heraclius II, was briefly Byzantine emperor in 641.
The Medieval history of Cyprus starts with the division of the Roman Empire into an Eastern and Western half.
The Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between a number of Muslim Arab dynasties and the Byzantine Empire from the 7th to the 11th century. Conflict started during the initial Muslim conquests, under the expansionist Rashidun and Umayyad caliphs, in the 7th century and continued by their successors until the mid-11th century.
The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman period in Egypt that began in 30 BC, and widely speaking Greco-Roman period that had lasted about a millennium.
The early Muslim conquests or early Islamic conquests, also known as the Arab conquests, were initiated in the 7th century by Muhammad, the founder of Islam. He established a new unified polity in Arabia that expanded rapidly under the Rashidun Caliphate and the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in Muslim rule being established on three continents over the next century. According to Scottish historian James Buchan: "In speed and extent, the first Arab conquests were matched only by those of Alexander the Great, and they were more lasting."
Pope Benjamin I of Alexandria, 38th Pope of Alexandria & Patriarch of the See of St. Mark. He is regarded as one of the greatest patriarchs of the Coptic Church. Benjamin guided the Coptic church through a period of turmoil in Egyptian history that included the fall of Egypt to the Sasanian Empire, followed by Egypt's reconquest under the Byzantines, and finally the Arab Islamic Conquest in 642. After the Arab conquest Pope Benjamin, who was in exile, was allowed to return to Alexandria and resume the patriarchate.
The Battle of Heliopolis or Ayn Shams was a decisive battle between Arab Muslim armies and Byzantine forces for the control of Egypt. Though there were several major skirmishes after this battle, it effectively decided the fate of the Byzantine rule in Egypt, and opened the door for the Muslim conquest of the Byzantine Exarchate of Africa.
The Battle of the Masts was a naval battle fought in 655 between the Rashidun Caliphate under the command of Abu al-A'war and the Byzantine Empire led by emperor Constans II.
The Muslim conquest of the Levant, or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab-Byzantine Wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and developed into the provincial region of Bilad al-Sham. Clashes between the Arabs and Byzantines on the southern Levantine borders of the Byzantine Empire had occurred during the lifetime of Muhammad, with the Battle of Muʿtah in 629 CE. However, the actual conquest did not begin until 634, two years after Muhammad's death. It was led by the first two Rashidun caliphs who succeeded Muhammad: Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab. During this time, Khalid ibn al-Walid was the most important leader of the Rashidun army.
Umar was the second Rashidun Caliph and reigned during 634–644. Umar's caliphate is notable for its vast conquests. Aided by brilliant field commanders, he was able to incorporate present-day Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and parts of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and south western Pakistan into the Caliphate. During his reign, the Byzantines lost more than three fourths of their territory and in Persia, and Umar was the king (ruler) of the Sassanid Empire before it ceased to exist.
The Byzantine–Seljuk wars were a series of conflicts in the Middle Ages between the Byzantine Empire and the Seljuk Empire. They shifted the balance of power in Asia Minor and Syria from the Byzantines to the Seljuk dynasty. Riding from the steppes of Central Asia, the Seljuks replicated tactics practiced by the Huns hundreds of years earlier against a similar Roman opponent but now combining it with new-found Islamic zeal. In many ways, the Seljuk resumed the conquests of the Muslims in the Byzantine–Arab Wars initiated by the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates in the Levant, North Africa and Asia Minor.
Between 780–1180, the Byzantine Empire and the Abbasid & Fatimid caliphates in the regions of Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Anatolia and Southern Italy fought a series of wars for supremacy in the Eastern Mediterranean. After a period of indecisive and slow border warfare, a string of almost unbroken Byzantine victories in the late 10th and early 11th centuries allowed three Byzantine Emperors, namely Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes and finally Basil II to recapture territory lost to the Muslim conquests in the 7th century Arab–Byzantine wars under the failing Heraclian Dynasty.
Forces of the Rashidun Caliphate seized the major Mediterranean port of Alexandria away from the Eastern Roman Empire in the middle of the 7th century AD. Alexandria had been the capital of the Byzantine province of Egypt. This ended Eastern Roman maritime control and economic dominance of the Eastern Mediterranean and thus continued to shift geopolitical power further in favor of the Rashidun Caliphate.
Amr ibn al-As ibn Wa'il al-Sahmi was the Arab commander who led the Muslim conquest of Egypt and served as its governor in 640–646 and 658–664. The son of a wealthy Qurayshite, Amr embraced Islam in c. 629 and was assigned important roles in the nascent Muslim community by the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The first caliph Abu Bakr appointed Amr as a commander of the conquest of Syria. He conquered most of Palestine, to which he was appointed governor, and helped lead the Arabs to decisive victories over the Byzantines at the battles of Ajnadayn and the Yarmuk in 634 and 636.
Byzantine Anatolia refers to the peninsula of Anatolia during the rule of the Byzantine Empire. Anatolia was of vital importance to the empire following the Muslim invasion of Syria and Egypt during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius in the years 634–645 AD. Over the next two hundred and fifty years, the region suffered constant raids by Arab Muslim forces raiding mainly from the cities of Antioch, Tarsus, and Aleppo near the Anatolian borders. However, the Byzantine Empire maintained control over the Anatolian peninsula until the High Middle Ages, when imperial authority in the area began to collapse.
The Babylon Fortress, a major military stronghold of the Byzantine Empire in Egypt, was captured by forces of the Rashidun Caliphate after a prolonged siege in 640. It was a major event during the Muslim conquest of Egypt.