スグール・シャーミーヤ再建史考

ムスリム勢力の拡大の一プロセスとして

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al-Thughur al-Shimiya was western part of the Arabo-Byzantine borderland, along the Taurus and the Amanus Mountains. In the early Islamic period, when the Byzantines were obliged to withdraw from Syria to Anatolia, towns and fortresses in this region was destructed and its inhabitants evacuated with Byzantine army. Then this region remained devastated as a buffer zone between the Byzantine and the Muslim territories. The project of reconstruction of this region by the hands of the Muslims began from the second half of the Umayyad period, and the 'Abbasids succeeded it. As a result of the efforts of them, al-Thughur al-Shamlya was reestablished as the Muslim territory. Then, the Muslims planed to expand their sphere to the region behind the Taurus Mountains. But soon they give up this attempt, and the Arabo-Byzantine border once was stabilized on the line along the Taurus Mountains. After that, al-Thughur al-Shamiya became one of the most prosperous Muslim districts, not only as a outpost of the Muslim expeditions to the Byzantine territory but as a commercial and cultural center of the Muslims. This article aims to trace a history of reconstruction of this region and reexamine some characteristics of it, from a view point of the expansion of the Muslim territory and the extend of Islamization in the Middle East.
As a border area, political and military predominance of the Muslims in this region did not establish swiftly as compared with other districts in the Middle East, and Muslim rule had been threatened by Byzantine reactions to recover there. The vulnerability of this region resulted in a great excess of expenditure, which needed to be compensated by help of the central government and booty or other gains from the expeditions. In result, it can be said that Muslim community had not been stabilized in al-Thughur al-Shamiya, and Islamization of this region were superficial. Thus, when the 'Abbassid dynasty became declined and Muslim hegemony was weakened in general, this region soon was reconquered by the Byzantines and all of the Muslim settlements were abandoned.