Hello everyone and welcome to the history of Byzantium, episode 104, God fearing.

Last time we discussed the whole 13 year reign of the Emperor Theophilus minus his activities

on the all-important Eastern Front.

Today it's nothing but that.

The last bit of action in Anatolia which we covered was a raid and counter raid following

the end of Thomas's civil war.

Michael felt the need to send a message that the Caliph's support for the Slav was unacceptable

and the Arabs returned the favor.

The Caliph Al-Mamun was the son of Harun Al-Rashid.

As you know he'd been through a difficult civil war with one of his other brothers.

And since then he'd had his hands full dealing with rebellions in Syria, Egypt and Azerbaijan.

The Syrian rebels appeared in our story during Thomas's revolt and the Egyptians when the

Spanish Arabs fled from Alexandria to Crete.

Now the rebels of Azerbaijan come into focus.

The Caliphate was of course a vast empire and lots of people within it were not fully

converted to Islam by the 9th century.

The people living up in the mountains, particularly in Azerbaijan which bordered Armenia, were one

such people.

This was the land of fire temples which Heraclius went stomping through back in the day.

When the Arabs arrived in the 7th century they occupied the lowland cities and left those

in the highlands to their own devices.

But by 800 Arabs settlers were being drawn to the area because of its mineral resources.

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