Arms and Armour

Battle of the Yarmuk

The Battle of the Yarmuk (also spelled Yarmouk; Arabic: معركة اليرموك) was a major battle between the Byzantine Empire and the Rashidun Caliphate near the Yarmouk River in Byzantine Syria that marked a crucial point in the Muslim conquest of Syria. The result of the battle was a decisive Arab victory that effectively ended Byzantine rule in Syria. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in August 636, near the Yarmouk River, along what are now the borders between Syria and Jordan and Syria and Israel, southeast of the Sea of Galilee. To check the Arab advance and to recover lost territory, Emperor Heraclius had sent a massive expedition to the Levant in May 636. As the Byzantine army approached, the Arabs tactically withdrew from Syria and regrouped all their forces at the Yarmuk plains close to the Arabian Peninsula, where they were reinforced, and defeated the numerically superior Byzantine army. The Battle of the Yarmuk is regarded as one of the most decisive battles in military history. It was also Khalid ibn al-Walid's greatest military victory and cemented his reputation as one of the greatest tacticians and cavalry commanders in history. The battle marked the culmination of the first great wave of early Muslim conquests after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, which witnessed the rapid advance of the Rashidun Caliphate into both the Sasanian Empire and the Byzantine Empire.

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See also

• ▸Air supremacy
• ▸Baghdad
• ▸Byzantine army (Komnenian era)

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