OnEasterMonday622,Heracliussailedwithanarmy, not(as expected) through the Black Sea to the Caucasus, but around the Ionian coast of the Mediterranean to the Bay of Issus whence he marched inland and defeated the Royal Boar. Even as the Persians threatened Constantinople, Heraclius was taking the war into their homeland. The next year, he repeated the trick, marching through Armenia and Azerbaijan towards Khusrau’s palace at Ganzak. The shah retreated. Heraclius wintered in Armenia and then in 625, in a Herculean display of military virtuosity, prevented three Persian armies uniting, before defeating each in turn.
In this war of wild gambles and global ambition, the shah turned the tables once again, despatching one general to seize Iraq and the Boar to link up with the Avars, a marauding, nomadic tribe, and take Constantinople. The shah, calling himself ‘Noblest of the Gods, King and Master of the Whole Earth’, wrote to Heraclius: ‘You say you trust in God; why then has He not delivered out of my hand Caesarea, Jerusalem, Alexandria? Could I not also destroy Constantinople? Have I not destroyed you Greeks?’ Heraclius despatched one army to fight in Iraq, another to defend the capital, while he himself hired 40,000 nomadic Turkic horsemen, the Khazars, to form a third.
Constantinople was besieged by the Persians and Avars on either side of the Bosphorus, but the shah was jealous of the Royal Boar. The over-weening arrogance and creative cruelties of the Master of the Whole Earth were already alienating his own noblemen. The shah sent a letter to the Royal Boar’s deputy ordering him to kill the general and take command. Heraclius intercepted it. Inviting the Boar to a meeting, he showed him the letter; they made a secret alliance. Constantinople was saved.
The Royal Boar withdrew to Alexandria to rule Syria, Palestine and Egypt. Heraclius sailed his army to the Caucasus via the Black Sea, and with his Khazar horsemen invaded Persia. He outmanoeuvred the Persian forces, challenged and killed three Persian champions in duels, then defeated their main army, stopping just outside the shah’s capital. Khusrau’s deluded intransigence destroyed him. He was arrested and placed in the dungeon, the House of Darkness, where his favourite son was butchered in front of him before he was himself tortured to death. The Persians agreed to restore the status quo ante bellum. The Royal Boar agreed to marry Heraclius’ niece and revealed the hiding-place of the True Cross. After tortuous intrigues, the Royal Boar seized the Persian throne – but was soon assassinated.
In 629, Heraclius set out from Constantinople with his wife (also his niece) to return the True Cross to Jerusalem. He pardoned the Jews of Tiberias, where he stayed in the mansion of a rich Jew, Benjamin, who accompanied him to Jerusalem, converting to Christianity on the way. The Jews were promised that there would be no vengeance and that they could reside in Jerusalem.
On 21 March 630, Heraclius, now sixty, exhausted and grey, rode up to the Golden Gate, which he had built for this special occasion. This exquisite gate became, for all three Abrahamic religions, Jerusalem’s most potently mystical gateway for the arrival of the Messiah on the Day of Judgement.* There the emperor dismounted to carry the True Cross into Jerusalem. It was said that when Heraclius tried to enter in his Byzantine robes the gate became a solid wall, but when he humbled himself it opened for his imperial procession. Carpets and aromatic herbs were spread as Heraclius delivered the True Cross to the Holy Sepulchre, now cleaned up by the patriarch Modestos. The catastrophe that had befallen the empire and the emperor’s return played into a new variant of the ever malleable vision of the Apocalypse in which a messianic Last Emperor would smash the enemies of Christianity and then hand power to Jesus who would rule until Judgement Day.
The Christians demanded vengeance on the Jews, but Heraclius refused until the monks took the sin of his broken oath to the Jews upon themselves as a fast of atonement. Heraclius then expelled any remaining Jews; many were massacred; he later ordered the forcible conversion of all Jews.
Far away to the south, the Arabians had noticed not so much Heraclius’ victory as his weakness. ‘The Romans have been defeated,’ declared Muhammad, the leader who had just united the Arabian tribes, in what became the sacred text of his new revelation, the Koran. While Heraclius was in Jerusalem, Muhammad despatched a raid up the King’s Highway to probe Byzantine defences. The Arabs encountered a Byzantine detachment – but they would soon return.
Heraclius would not have been too alarmed: the divided Arab tribes had been raiding Palaestina for centuries. The Byzantines and Persians had both hired Arab tribes as buffer states between the empires, and Heraclius had fielded large squadrons of Arab cavalry in his armies.
The next year, Muhammad sent another small detachment to attack Byzantine territory. But he was now old and his spectacular life was near its end. Heraclius left Jerusalem and headed back to Constantinople.
There seemed little to fear.8
PART FOUR
ISLAM
Glory to Him who made His servant travel by night from the sacred place of worship to the furthest place of worship.
The Koran,17.1
The Apostle of Allah, accompanied by Gabriel, was transported to Jerusalem where he found Abraham and Moses and the other Prophets.
Ibn Ishaq, Sirat Rasul Allah
A ruler was not considered a caliph unless he reigned over both the Holy Mosque [Mecca] and the Jerusalem Mosque.
Sibani, Fadail
One day in Jerusalem is like a thousand days, one month like a thousand months, and one year like a thousand years. Dying there is like dying in the first sphere of heaven.
Kaab al-Ahbar, Fadail
A sin committed [in Jerusalem] is equal to a thousand sins and a good deed there to a thousand good deeds.
Khalid bin Madan al-Kalai, Fadail
Allah, may he be praised, said of Jerusalem. You are my Garden of Eden, my hallowed and chosen land.
Kaab al-Ahbar, Fadail
O Jerusalem,I shall send you my servant Abd al-Malik to rebuild and adorn you.
Kaab al-Ahbar, Fadail
THE ARAB CONQUEST
630–60
MUHAMMAD: THE NIGHT JOURNEY
Muhammad’s father died before he was born and his mother died when he was just six. But he was adopted by his uncle, who took him on trading trips to Bosra in Syria. There he was taught about Christianity by a monk, studied the Jewish and Christian scriptures, coming to venerate Jerusalem as one of the noblest of sanctuaries. In his twenties, a wealthy widow named Khadija, much older than he, employed him to manage her caravan trading and then married him. They lived in Mecca, the home of the Kaaba and its black stone, the sanctuary of a pagan god. The city thrived on the pilgrims attracted by this cult and by caravan trading. Muhammad was a member of the Quraysh tribe, who provided its leading merchants and custodians of the sanctuary, but his Hashemite clan was not one of the more powerful.
Muhammad, described as handsome with curly hair and beard, possessed both an all-conquering geniality – it was said that when he shook someone’s hand he never liked to be the one to let go first – and a charismatic spirituality. He was admired for his integrity and intelligence – as his warriors later put it, ‘He was the best among us’ – and he was known as al-Amin, the Reliable.