In 647, Governor Abdullah ibn Sa’ad led an army west toward Libya. In Amr’s original sweep through Egypt, he had occupied the Libyan coast, but North Africa stretched far into the west and it was still a Roman stronghold. Tunisia, with rebuilt Carthage as its capital, was fervently Christian and determined not to fall under Muslim rule. The Romans had been strengthening Tunisia by sea.
Caliph Uthman sent newly-raised units of South Arabians with directions that it was time to move west. Abdullah moved across Libya into Tunisia, but the Christian Governor led his army south to the edge of the desert, choosing to fight at Sbeitla, or Sufetula, where an old Roman temple had been turned into a fortress. There he was closer to the homeland of the Berbers, who joined him. The Governor’s daughter came to Sbeitla with him; we know this because her marital fate hung in the balance. The Governor promised her to any chief who would decapitate Abdullah; but Abdullah made the same promise to his men: the Christian Governor’s daughter to any man who would decapitate her father. In a bloody battle, the Arabs prevailed, and the daughter was indeed captured, though she may have died on the way back to Egypt.
At that time, the Muslim invasion of North Africa went no farther; Egypt was secure. But now for the second time, the Arabs in Egypt had faced an invasion army that arrived by sea and was fed by sea-borne provisions. It was clear that if the Muslims were going to keep their territories around the Mediterranean Sea, they needed a navy.
Uthman permitted a trial navy, but he had two demands. First, all participating ships and sailors would be volunteers. (I imagine some East Arabians stepped right up.) Second, if the generals and captains were so sure it was all right to be at sea, they would prove it by bringing along their wives.
Naval ships in the Mediterranean Sea had rows of oarsmen, in addition to sails. This type of ship was generally called a galley, and this particular one was a dromon. The ships were less for speeding across the sea, and more for quickly backing up or turning in a sea battle. Just having some dromons would not be enough to fight effectively. It would take time to drill teams of oarsmen to change their rowing strokes on command, so that the captain could “steer.” One shortcut to having an effective navy was to capture existing ship’s crews and take over rowers who were already trained.
The first navy was manned by Syrian and Egyptian sailors, and it made only a short journey to Cyprus. Arab fighters stood on deck; they were not part of the sailing apparatus, they were just ready to board enemy ships or disembark on land. Mu’awiya and Abdullah led the invasion together. The notable death in this invasion was one of the wives, who was famous as a Medinan lady who had known Muhammad well. She fell off her mule as they moved inland, fulfilling Muhammad’s prediction that she would die a bloodless death. Her tomb was since rebuilt as a mosque.
A few years later, the Roman/Byzantine fleet came back to Alexandria to try ousting the Muslims again. This time, the small Muslim fleet could engage it at sea. The Romans backed off and sailed to Sicily, where outraged Sicilians lynched the admiral. But Mu’awiya believed that the island of Cyprus had given some assistance to this fleet as it passed. The treaty made in 649 had certainly forbidden this assistance to Islam’s enemies.
So in 653, Mu’awiya used the fleet to attack Cyprus again. This time, the Arabs took captives to sell as slaves and set up a major military garrison. Then the Muslim fleet headed along the coast of Anatolia, the Byzantine heartland, to challenge the main Roman fleet. In 654, they fought a major battle at sea; the Roman Emperor Constans was there in person. The Muslim crews still had poor technique, but they turned the sea battle into a land battle by tying their ships together and fighting on deck, instead of ramming ships as in the old Greek strategy. It was a bloody battle, if that can be said of a blood that’s constantly washed away by sea water. Emperor Constans narrowly escaped.
The Mediterranean Sea had been a Roman lake since the defeat of Carthage in 146 BC. For the first time in 800 years, a hostile navy made parts of the coast closed to Roman ships. The Muslim navy became stronger as the years passed, until half the Mediterranean was essentially a Muslim lake.
- The Heirs of Muhammad, by Barnaby Rogerson
- Great Arab Conquests, by Hugh Kennedy