Free Article Review On Christians And Muslims: Best Of Enemies

Summary of the Article

This article is about the war between the Byzantine Empire and the Muslim Abbasid caliphate for nearly three century and how the factors such as trade and mutual admiration of ancient Greece made them come to peace moreover describes how diplomatic relationship were formed between bitter rivals .
The death of the prophet Muhammad in 632 AD caused the occupation of Egypt, Syria and Palestine, Jerusalem, and had even come close to capturing Constantinople by the newly Islamized Arabs. During the Abbasid dynasty the situation seemed to be stabilized however it was just temporarily. If in 838 Caliph Al-Mu'tasim reached the levels of savagery towards to Christians, in 962 the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros Phokas descended on Syria and crashed Muslims further in 975 Phokas' successor, John I Tzimiskes continued his conquest.
Both the Byzantines and the Arabs believed that they were fighting against infidels while they didn’t understand each other’s beliefs. When f Basra thought that the Byzantines had three gods, an obvious and perhaps calculated misunderstanding of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the Byzantine emperor Constantine VII was under the mistaken impression that Muslims worshipped the planet Venus and God created man from a leech (Harris, J). However they had common interest to exchange prisoners. For example on September 21st, 896 over 2,000 Muslim men, women and children were ransomed from the Byzantines at the Lamis Bridge. Even during wars people continue trading with each other; Muslims and Christians, Britain and France during Napoleonic Wars. Trading is one of the most powerful reason leading people to interact, develop and understand each other. “Prisoner exchanges were prompted by necessity, trade by the hope of financial gain” and led to establish diplomatic relationship (Harris, J). After his visit Bagdad John the Grammarian “persuaded the emperor to build himself a country residence in Constantinople to exactly the same design, with the one difference that two churches were included”. Both sides exchanged reforms, learned new ideas from each other.
The endless war is a phenomenon that is never found in human history and time after time both sides had to find the way to live alongside each other as we do today (Harris, J). Enemies managed to live mutually in peace moreover as long as diplomatic and commercial links were developing they shared an admiration for the literature and ideas of ancient Greece. When Constantinople became the capital of the Byzantine Empire, it also became an educational and intellectual center, where ancient Greek literature and philosophy were studied by the Byzantines. Arabs’ main interest was in the philosophy, mathematics and medicine. Based on Greek education, Arabs developed the numerals that have now become universal.
Brotherhood was established since the letter written by Nicholas Mystikos, Patriarch of Constantinople to Abbasid caliph declares that they were 'brothers superior to and preferred above their brethren'. For this very reason, the patriarch suggested, Byzantines and Arabs ought to be brotherly and in contact with each other (Harris, J). Nowadays we still have some problems however the humanity has many other reasons to live in brotherhood with each other.