| The thesis intends to fill a gap in the information that we have on the relations between the Byzantines and the Arabs, namely the image of the Byzantines as it is reflected in Arabic sources. I have used well-known and popular texts in my quest to find the common image that the Arab Muslims had of their main rival. The Arabic descriptions are often trapped between the attraction of the Byzantines conjointly with their status as their main military and cultural rival. Therefore, they vacillated between positive and negative, between praise and condemnation while transpiring in ambiguity with respect to certain facets of Byzantine culture and civilization.; Thus, the descriptions of the personal and moral characteristics of the Byzantines are bluntly negative while in other aspects, the Byzantine artisanal and architectural skills, for instance, the Arabs praise the Byzantines as being the supreme masters. The appraisal of Byzantine scientific and philosophical knowledge reveals, however, a clear ambiguity. In the description of the Byzantine emperors the Arabic sources betray a gradually developing negative imagery, as the contrast between the descriptions of Emperors Heraclius and Nicephorus Phocas reveal. The impact of Byzantine ceremonial on the authors and on the Islamic state is reflected in the Arabic sources. Constantinople is at the center of the discussion: physical and symbolic references to Constantinople abound at the expense of the rest of the Empire. Throughout our sources, Constantinople plays a paramount role in the Muslim general perception of the Byzantine Empire and, in some sense, even shaping it. In studying the Arabs' view of Byzantium, the thesis always tried to offer a glimpse at the Arabs' own morality, values, sense of history and of themselves. |
