During the Prophet’s life, the region that is now Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria was generally referred to as Syria (Arabic “Shams”). Its main cities had changed hands rapidly during the long war between Byzantines and Persians. In 627, Emperor Heraclius had won a significant victory that handed him back control of Damascus and Jerusalem. For the Byzantines, the cities of Antioch and Jerusalem had special religious meaning; their church leaders were part of the traditional decision-making structure. A fragment of the True Cross was returned as part of the peace treaty, and all rejoiced. But the plain fact was also that city walls had been wrecked and it was a harder region to defend.
In the southern area of the old Roman province of Palestine, the large tribe of Ghassan, former Southern Arabs had settled. Many of the Ghassanid Arabs had become Christians. Caravan travel from Arabia proper was managed by Ghassanids in cities like Bosra and their capital, Jabiyah, in the Golan Heights. Jabiyah has completely disappeared, leaving behind only a hill, Tell al-Jabiyah, in a region that has been hotly contested in the Syrian Civil War. But in its time, it was a city with wealth and culture. The Arab mania for poetry was strong in Jabiyah; there were famous poets supported by the Ghassanid king. The purpose of the Ghassanid kingdom was to be the Roman/Byzantine hand that dealt with all things Arab, including the raiders of the desert, the caravan merchants, and the neighboring Arabic kingdom of the Lakhmids in Southern Iraq.
Muhammad’s letter to the Byzantine governor at Bosra had gone unanswered, so eventually he sent two groups north. A messenger took a second letter, while about 15 men went north to meet with Bedouin Arabs were allied to the Ghassanids and offer to instruct them in Islamic prayer. But both embassies were met with hostility; only one man escaped back to tell Muhammad that the others had been killed. A Ghassanid chief’s decision to kill the lone official ambassador was taken even more seriously, since the Arabs operated under a general regional understanding of not ever killing ambassadors.
Muhammad responded aggressively to this challenge. He called up an army of 3000 fighting men to approach the Syrian border and punish the Ghassanids for these deaths. He put his adopted-son Zayd in charge, with Ali’s brother Ja’far as second in command. The army went to a place called Mu’tah, where they found a larger Byzantine army waiting. In these times, armies had to find each other, often choosing a wide plain to fight in, and just waiting until the other side showed up. The leaders decided to go ahead and fight, saying, “We have a choice of two good things: victory or martyrdom!”
The Battle of Mu’tah is a bit strange, first in that out of thousands, only a handful were killed—and mainly the leaders. Second, that the main reporting on the battle comes from Muhammad’s vision of the action. He saw Zayd carrying the white battle flag until he died of his wounds, whereupon Ja’far took the flag until he too died, and then the 3rd in command did the same. A Medinan seized the flag, then handed it to Khalid, a Meccan, who used its rallying power to draw the Muslims into a retreat. Was this mainly a charge led by the generals, the same way the Battles of Badr and Uhud had begun with single-combat challenges? If the Byzantine force was many times larger (some say it numbered 100,000), why did they not pursue the Muslims and take prisoners?
In any case, when the men came home, Medina had already been mourning the leaders’ deaths, since Muhammad had told the families what he saw in his vision. He also had a vision of the top three leaders in Paradise. Strategically, it was a great defeat, but numerically, it was not important. A small force rode north soon afterwards and attacked just one of the border tribes. This success placed a strategic foothold on the Syrian border. Muhammad was probably aware that Roman defenses of Syria had crumbled; there was no better time to press an advantage there.
The other interesting thing about the second raid is that it was led by a Meccan who had until recently been one of Muhammad’s chief foes. The peace treaty with Medina had left Mecca demoralized; peace is better news for the rising power than for the falling one. As other tribes—and even the southern city of Sana’a—entered Islam, it was clear to Mecca that the tide was running in Muhammad’s favor. A few of his greatest adversaries left Mecca after the Prophet’s very public pilgrimage. Khalid, who led the retreat at Mu’tah, was one who chose to just go to Medina and enter Islam.
But the one who led this last raid was Amr, who had been the chief spokesman for the Meccans who tried to get Abyssinia to reject the Muslim refugees twelve years before. When he left Mecca to steer clear of the coming Muslim conquest, he tried going to Abyssinia. But the Negus (king) of Abyssinia told him to submit to Allah. He finally gave in, entered Islam, and came to Medina not long before the Syrian raids. He would continue to be a military commander and provincial governor for the Islamic State as it expanded. A minor character to this point, he became a major player after Muhammad’s death, as did some of the other Meccan enemies of Islam.
After Amr’s raid, they took no further action on Syria. But the book was still open; Syria’s time would just need to wait. Because in the meantime, something even bigger happened.