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فشل الحصار الأموي للقسطنطينية
The Umayyad siege of Constantinople, conducted from approximately 98 to 100 AH (717–718 CE), was the second and most sustained attempt by the Islamic caliphate to capture the Byzantine capital. It ended in complete failure, with the Muslim besieging force devastated by disease, famine, the Byzantine naval weapon known as Greek Fire, and a brutal winter — the siege's failure marking the definitive limit of Umayyad westward expansion in the east.
The desire to capture Constantinople had been present in Islamic military thinking almost from the beginning of the Byzantine-Muslim conflict. The Prophet ﷺ is reported in some hadith to have referred to the first commander who would conquer Constantinople as fortunate — a tradition that motivated successive caliphs and commanders to attempt the feat.
The first Muslim siege of Constantinople had occurred under Muawiyah ibn Abi Sufyan in approximately 49–50 AH, when a fleet commanded by the governor of Syria, Muawiyah's half-brother Yazid ibn Mu'awiyah, blockaded the city. That attempt failed and was followed by a multi-year naval siege in which the commander Yazid ibn Mu'awiyah (different from the later caliph) and many notable warriors participated. The Companion Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, one of the last surviving companions of the earliest period, died during this siege and was buried outside Constantinople's walls — his tomb remaining there to this day.
After the First Fitna disrupted Muslim military power, al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik's caliphate resumed aggressive expansion in all directions. When Suleiman ibn Abd al-Malik became caliph in 96 AH, he planned the most ambitious assault on Constantinople yet: a massive coordinated land and sea operation designed to overwhelm Byzantine defenses.
Suleiman assembled a force of unprecedented scale. The Arabic sources give numbers that modern historians treat with caution — figures of eighty thousand, one hundred thousand, or even larger are cited for the land force alone. The fleet was substantial, with estimates of between five hundred and two thousand ships. Whatever the exact figures, this was the largest military expedition the Umayyad caliphate had mounted.
Command was divided between Suleiman's brother Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, who led the land forces, and Umar ibn Hubayra, who commanded the fleet. The plan called for the land army to march through Anatolia and invest Constantinople from the land side while the fleet blockaded it from the sea, cutting off supplies and reinforcements.
Maslamah's land army crossed the Bosphorus and established a siege line on the European shore in Muharram 98 AH (August 717 CE). The fleet simultaneously moved to blockade the sea approaches. Constantinople's formidable land walls — the Theodosian Walls, constructed in the early 5th century CE and never successfully breached until 1453 CE — resisted all assault. The city's defenders, under Emperor Leo III (who had just come to power in a coup), organized a vigorous defense.
The Byzantines deployed Greek Fire, the incendiary naval weapon whose precise formula remains unknown to historians, with devastating effect against the Muslim fleet. Greek Fire, which burned on water and could not be extinguished by water, had already broken the earlier Umayyad naval siege and now destroyed large portions of the Muslim fleet again. The Arabic sources describe the catastrophic effectiveness of this weapon with evident horror.
The winter of 98–99 AH (717–718 CE) was exceptionally severe, described in the sources as one of the coldest winters in memory. The Muslim besieging force, encamped on the European shore of the Bosphorus, suffered catastrophic losses to cold and disease. Supply lines were disrupted. The army began to starve.
The Bulgars, who controlled territory in the Balkans north of Constantinople, attacked the Muslim land forces during the siege — reportedly killing, according to the Arabic sources, twenty-two thousand soldiers in a single engagement. The Bulgar attack, which the Byzantines had coordinated or at least encouraged, further degraded the Muslim besieging force's combat effectiveness.
In Mahar 100 AH (August 718 CE), after approximately thirteen months of siege, Maslamah withdrew the surviving land forces. The fleet, what remained of it after Greek Fire attacks and storms, attempted to return to Syria but suffered further losses in storms in the Aegean and was almost entirely destroyed.
The losses sustained in the Constantinople campaign were catastrophic. Modern historians accept that the Muslim force that returned was a small fraction of what had set out. Some sources suggest only a few ships of the fleet survived. The human cost was enormous.
The failure of the siege of Constantinople in 98–100 AH was one of the most consequential military outcomes of the 8th century. It definitively ended the Umayyad caliphate's strategic ambition of capturing the Byzantine capital. Combined with the check at Tours/Poitiers in 114 AH on the western front, it defined the stable boundaries within which Islamic civilization would develop in the medieval period.
For Byzantium, the repulsion of the siege was the beginning of a stabilization that lasted until the 11th century. Emperor Leo III, whose defense of Constantinople was his defining achievement, consolidated Byzantine military power and launched the Isaurian dynasty's rule.
For the Umayyad caliphate, the losses of the Constantinople campaign were a significant drain on military resources and morale. The campaign had been Caliph Suleiman's great project — he died in 99 AH before its conclusion — and its failure marked the beginning of the end of the Umayyad expansionist era.
The hadith promising blessing to the first commander who would conquer Constantinople was ultimately fulfilled — not by the Umayyads, but by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (Muhammad al-Fatih), who captured the city in 857 AH (1453 CE), fulfilling what the Umayyads had failed to achieve.
For the Prophetic era, see the Seerah timeline.