The power of the arab caliphs in the byzantine literature of the 9th and 10th centuries

Abstract

The birth of Islam proclaimed a new age in the history of interreligious interactions in the Middle East. In the 7th century, the political map of the region has changed, and the Christian world encountered a new adversary represented by the first Islamic state known as Caliphate. First of all, the transformation of the region influenced the consciousness of Eastern Romans (or Byzantines), whose state became a real barrier protecting Europe from the hordes of conquerors. Byzantine Empire held back the Arabian attacks for centuries, and the Caliphate was always regarded as «the state of evil» or «the Kingdom of Antichrist». Such tensions transferred to the rest of the Christian states and created a pattern for the general relation to Islam in Europe, which remained negative throughout all the Middle Ages. The problem of religious interactions, conflicts and their mutual impact on the views of popular masses, scholars and different groups of society became a subject of numerous studies. Nevertheless, the scholars usually concentrate on the religious and theological aspects. This article is devoted to the issue which is often ignored in the scholarship, namely the image of secular power of the Muslim world in perception of Byzantine scholars. The investigation is based on texts of two authors, Theophanes the Confessor and the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Both of them use specific terminology towards the Caliphs, and these terms come from the ancient past. The analysis of such passages can tell us more about Byzantine ties with Arabian world and their special attitude to the phenomenon of the Eastern despotism.