User:Al Ameer son/Umayyad army

Shurta and haras

References to the shurṭa appear in the traditional Muslim sources from the reign of Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656). In these early stages, the shurṭa likely represented the select troops of a caliph or governor, and the first known sahib (head) of a shurṭa was Uthman's governor of Kufa, Sa'id ibn al-As. The corps was institutionalized by Mu'awiya, who mandated that his shurṭa and haras (personal guard) remain with him daily and nightly following an assassination attempt in 661. By the end of his reign, the two corps had developed into critical components of the Muslim state security apparatus, a development which lasted well into the early Abbasid period. During the first decade of the caliph's remain, the shurṭa developed into police or security forces. In addition to that of the caliph, each provincial governor maintained his own shurṭa; together with the haras, they were the only truly permanent troops readily available to the earliest Umayyad caliphs and their governors. The practical and ceremonial functions of these security institutions were developed by the powerful governor of Iraq, Ziyad ibn Abih, who had a 4,000-strong shurṭa charged with maintaining the rule of law and the stringent curfews implemented by the governor in the Iraqi garrison cities and a 500-strong haras headquartered in the mosque. The weapon of choice wielded by the troops of his shurṭa was a stave (ʿamūd), though they were likely armed with swords (sayf) as well. The commander of the shurta was also ceremonially armed with a spear (ḥarba). Arab tribesmen served as the commanders of the provincial and caliphal shurṭa, while non-Arab mawālī (Muslim freedmen or clients) typically held command of the haras.

Field armies

The Umayyad Caliphate did not possess a single field army, but rather a number of different armies, chief of which was the Syrian army (ahl al-Sham). The other main military forces were the armies headquartered in the Iraqi garrisons of Kufa and Basra, respectively. These troops served separate from each other and under the Umayyads were largely assigned to the internal and external defense of Iraq, though they were occasionally deployed as far as Khurasan and Sijistan. Under the Umayyads, Khurasan had its own army, derived from the garrisons of Basra and Kufa but which had developed its own identity and became sharply divided along tribo-factional lines. The relatively small army of Egypt was largely represented by the garrison of Fustat, whose ranks consisted of the original Arab conquerors of the region and their descendants. Beyond maintaining order in Egypt, its troops also served in the conquests of North Africa and Spain.

Syrian army

Sufyanid period

In historian Hugh N. Kennedy's summation, the Muslim army under Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), the first Umayyad caliph, "must have been effectively organised and led, but we have no means of knowing how this was done, or how they fought". Prior to his assumption of the Caliphate, Mu'awiya had been a commander in Syria under Caliph Umar since 634 and later became governor of the entire province in 646/647 under Caliph Uthman. In his bid for power, Mu'awiya did not depend on the Arab soldiers of the Rashidun army who conquered Syria in the 630s; instead, he militarily relied on the old-established, nomadic and semi-nomadic Arab tribes of Syria, particularly the Kalb and Tanukh, leading components of the Quda'a confederation. The Kalb dominated the steppes between Damascus and Homs and the Tanukh were based around Qinnasrin and Aleppo. The other tribes Mu'awiya utilized were the Judham and Lakhm of Palestine, the Tayy around Qinnasrin and the Ghassan in the southern and western countryside of Damascus. These tribes had become Christians in the period prior to the Muslim conquest and some of their tribesmen retained their Christian faith well into the early Umayyad period.

From its foundation, the Umayyad Caliphate was entirely dependent on the army in Syria, which was often referred to in sources as ahl al-Shām. Since the time of Caliph Umar, Syria was divided into ajnad (sing. jund), a term that referred to military districts and the soldiers based in them. While there is no direct link between the ajnad and the subdivisions of Byzantine Syria, it is possible that the Islamic Syrian districts of Hims, Dimashq, Filastin and al-Urdunn were modeled on the regional commands of Byzantine duces, whose ranks contained many Arab tribesmen.

Mu'awiya maintained the military system in Syria, which consisted of provincial districts, each with a garrison of muqatila (soldiers) under a governor appointed by the caliph. The muqatila, whose ranks derived from the local Arab tribes, were somewhat autonomous; their main roles were to mobilize on command to defend the Muslim state against external threats and internal dissent in the provinces. They derived their income from taxes collected from their own districts. Thus, instead of a centralized military administration, organization and pay of the muqatila were the responsibility of the district governor. The centrality of Syria's troops to the Umayyad state is illustrated by Mu'awiya's advice to his son and successor Yazid I to keep the Syrians close "for they are your retinue and the ones you can trust". He further warned Yazid that when he sent the Syrians on campaigns, he ought to ensure that they return to Syria after the completion of their objective "because if they stay in another country, they will change character".

Coastal defense

To make up for the reluctance of the Arab tribesmen to garrison the coastal cities, Mu'awiya forcibly resettled Persian holdovers of the early 7th-century Sassanian invasion who lived in Baalbek, Homs and Antioch, along with Persian asāwira from Kufa and Basra to guard Syria's coasts.

Bibliography

• Athamina, Khalil (1998). "Non-Arab Regiments and Private Militias during the Umayyād Period". Arabica. 45 (3): 347–378.