*962*
(under the future emperor ‘nicephorus phocas’, byzantine troops stormed the city of ‘aleppo’, recovering the tattered tunic of ‘john the baptist’)
(what kind of twisted ‘capture the relic’ game wuz they playing?)
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(the Arab–Byzantine wars were a series of wars between the mostly ‘Arab Muslims’ and the ‘East Roman’ or ‘Byzantine Empire’ between the 600s and 1000s, 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)
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(the emergence of ‘Muslim Arabs’ from ‘Arabia’ in the 630s resulted in the rapid loss of Byzantium’s southern provinces (‘Syria’ and ‘Egypt’) to the ‘Muslim Caliphate’)
(over the next 50 years, under the aggressive ‘Umayyad’ caliphs, the Muslims would launch repeated raids into still-Byzantine ‘Asia Minor’, twice threaten the Byzantine capital, ‘Constantinople’ with conquest, and outright conquer the ‘Byzantine Exarchate of Africa’)
(the situation did not stabilize until after the failure of the ‘Second Arab Siege of Constantinople’ in 718, when the ‘Taurus Mountains’ on the eastern rim of ‘Asia Minor’ became established as the mutual, heavily fortified and largely depopulated frontier)
(under the ‘Abbasid Empire’, relations became more normal, with embassies exchanged and even periods of truce, but conflict remained the norm, with almost annual raids and counter-raids, sponsored either by the ‘Abbasid’ government or by local rulers, well into the 10th century)
(during the first centuries, the Byzantines were usually on the defensive, and avoided open field battles, preferring to retreat to their fortified strongholds)
(only after 740 did they begin to launch counterstrikes of their own, but still the ‘Abbasid Empire’ was able to retaliate with often massive and destructive invasions of ‘Asia Minor’)
(with the decline and fragmentation of the ‘Abbasid’ state after 861 and the concurrent strengthening of the ‘Byzantine Empire’ under the ‘Macedonian’ dynasty, the tide gradually turned)
(over a period of 50 years from ca. 920 to 976, the Byzantines finally broke through the Muslim defenses and restored their control over northern Syria and ‘Greater Armenia’)
(the last century of the Arab–Byzantine wars was dominated by frontier conflicts with the ‘Fatimids’ in ‘Syria’, but the border remained stable until the appearance of a new people, the ‘Seljuk Turks’, after 1060)
(the arabs also took to the sea, and from the 650s on, the entire ‘Mediterranean Sea’ became a battleground, with raids and counter-raids being launched against islands and the ‘coastal settlements’)
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(‘arab raids’ reached a peak in the 880s + early 900s, after the conquests of [‘crete’ / ‘malta’ / ‘sicily’], with their fleets reaching the coasts of ‘france’ + ‘dalmatia’ and even the suburbs of ‘constantinople’)
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*👨🔬🕵️♀️🙇♀️*SKETCHES*🙇♂️👩🔬🕵️♂️*
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👈👈👈☜*“MUSLIMS VS CHRISTIANS”* ☞ 👉👉👉
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💕💝💖💓🖤💙🖤💙🖤💙🖤❤️💚💛🧡❣️💞💔💘❣️🧡💛💚❤️🖤💜🖤💙🖤💙🖤💗💖💝💘
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*🌈✨ *TABLE OF CONTENTS* ✨🌷*
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🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥*we won the war* 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥