The Battle of Yarmouk and the Fall of Byzantine Syria

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

The Muslim Conquest of the Levant was the Rashidun Caliphate's campaign, begun under Caliph Abu Bakr and completed under his successor Umar ibn al-Khattab, to conquer the Byzantine-ruled provinces of Syria and Palestine in their entirety. Muslim forces under commanders including Khalid ibn al-Walid and Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah won a decisive victory over a large Byzantine army under Emperor Heraclius himself at the Battle of Yarmouk in 636, which effectively ended organized Byzantine resistance in the whole region for good.

The victorious forces went on to capture Damascus, Jerusalem, Antioch and the other principal cities of the Levant within two years of the victory at Yarmouk itself. Byzantine rule in Syria and Palestine ended permanently as a result, and the conquered Christian and Jewish population was governed under the caliphate's own customary terms for protected non-Muslim subjects rather than expelled or forcibly converted en masse by the new authorities. The speed of the conquest that followed Yarmouk, with Damascus, Jerusalem and Antioch all falling within two years of a single battlefield victory, left Byzantine emperor Heraclius reportedly unable to organize any further serious counteroffensive to recover the provinces he had just lost.