The Historical Significance of the Islamic–Byzantine Border: From the Seventh Century to 1291

This chapter provides a historical overview of the Islamic-Byzantine border throughout the period under consideration. It then analyses the cultural significance of that border within the Islamic world over time, showing that it possessed two discrete eras of major importance, which shaped the Islamic world in different ways. During the first period, from the seventh through the ninth centuries, the Islamic-Byzantine border occupied an important position in the ḥadīth on Jihad, and in Muslim apocalyptic. More importantly, the religious prestige of the proto-Sunnī border warrior movement which arose on the Byzantine frontier was key to the victory of the Sunni revolution in early ʿAbbāsid times, and the consequent political collapse of the caliphate once its religious authority had been hollowed out. The second period of significance for the Islamic-Byzantine border was during the Seljuq period: First, because the great victory over Byzantium at Manzikert provided legitimation for this inaugurator of alien Turco-Mongol rule in the Middle East; second, because it shifted the border from Syria into Anatolia, after half a millennium of status quo, setting off the Crusading movement, which brought about, for the first time, direct and sustained close contact between Latin Christian civilisation and the Islamic world.