War with the Byzantine Empire

@islamichistory #Islamiccaliphate #9thcaliph #AbbasidCaliphate #warwithbyzanineempire

War with the Byzantine Empire

In 838 al-Mu'tasim had scored a major victory against the Abbasid Caliphate's perennial foe, the Byzantine Empire, with the celebrated sack of Amorion.[44] This success was not followed up, and warfare reverted to the usual raids and counter-raids along the border. According to Byzantine sources, at the time of his death in 842, al-Mu'tasim was preparing yet another large-scale invasion, but the great fleet he had prepared to assault Constantinople perished in a storm off Cape Chelidonia a few months later.[45] This event is not reported in Muslim sources.[32]
Following al-Mu'tasim's death, the Byzantine regent Theoktistos attempted to reconquer the Emirate of Crete, an Abbasid vassal, but the campaign ended in disaster.[46] In 844, an army from the border emirates of Qaliqala and Tarsus, led by Abu Sa'id, and possibly the emir of Malatya Umar al-Aqta, raided deep into Byzantine Asia Minor and reached as far as the shore of the Bosporus. The Muslims then defeated Theoktistos at the Battle of Mauropotamos, aided by the defection of senior Byzantine officers.[47] At around the same time, the Paulicians, a sect persecuted as heretical in Byzantium, defected to the Arabs under their leader Karbeas. They founded a small principality on the Abbasid–Byzantine frontier, centred on the fortress of Tephrike, and henceforth joined the Arabs in their attacks on Byzantine territory.[48][49]

In 845, a Byzantine embassy arrived at the caliphal court to negotiate about a prisoner exchange. It was held in September of the same year under the auspices of Yazaman al-Khadim, and somewhere between 3,500 and 4,600 Muslims were ransomed.[50][51] In March of the same year, however, 42 officers taken captive at Amorion were executed at Samarra, after refusing to convert to Islam.[52][53] After the truce arranged for the exchange expired, the Abbasid governor of Tarsus, Ahmad ibn Sa'id ibn Salm, led a winter raid with 7,000 men. It failed disastrously, with 500 men dying of cold or drowning, and 200 taken prisoner.[54][55] After this, the Arab-Byzantine frontier remained quiet for six years.[55] Only in the west did the Abbasids' Aghlabid clients continue their gradual conquest of Byzantine Sicily, capturing Messina (842/43), Modica (845), and Leontini (846).[56] In 845/46, the Aghlabids captured Miseno near Naples in mainland Italy, and in the next year their ships appeared in the Tiber River and their crews raided the environs of Rome.
So friends tomorow we will be discribe assessment and legacy of 9th Caliph of Abbasid Caliphate.
Allah hafiz

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