The Muslim Conquest and the Crusades

Beginning about 540, Syria was invaded repeatedly by the Persians, who sacked Aleppo and Antioch and occupied Damascus. The seventh century brought the Muslim conquest. The Syrians gave little support to the Byzantines, who had treated them as heretics because they adhered to the doctrine of Monophysitism. ( The Muslims won final victory in 636 and in 661 made Damascus their capital.

In 750 the capital was moved to Baghdad, but Syria retained its cultural and commercial importance. In 972 the Fatimids, a rival Muslim faction from Egypt, occupied Palestine and Syria, and the Byzantines reoccupied Antioch. New conquerors, the Seljuk Turks, soon appeared from the east. They defeated the Byzantines in 1071 and drove the Fatimids back to Egypt. A Seljuk kingdom was the first to make formal use of the name Syria.

From Europe were launched the Crusades to return the Holy Land to the Christians. The First Crusade took Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099, and soon Crusader knights had founded several Christian principalities. The Muslims gradually regained territory, but the Crusaders held some coastal points for almost 200 years.

Inland Syria was invaded by Mongol hordes, who destroyed Aleppo in 1260 and occupied Damascus. The Mamelukes, a new Egyptian dynasty, repulsed the Mongols and annexed Syria to Egypt, leaving the Crusaders in control of two small domains. The Mongols attacked again and again before they drew back in 1303. Fearing betrayal by the Crusaders, the Mamelukes took their remaining lands, and in 1291 the Europeans departed.