After the Umayyad Caliphate was repelled in the first Arab siege of Constantinople (674–678), the Arabs and Byzantines experienced a period of peace, with hostilities again engaged by Byzantine Emperor Justinian II (), resulting in a string of Arab victories, and the loss of control over the Armenia and the Caucasian principalities for the Byzantines, as well as a gradual encroachment upon Byzantine borderlands. Yearly, generals from the Caliphate would launch raids into Byzantine territory, seizing fortresses and towns. After 712, the defensives of the Byzantine Empire began to weaken, Arab raids began to penetrate deeper into Byzantine Asia Minor, and Byzantine response to these raids became more scarce. The success of these raids emboldened the Arabs, who had begun to prepare for a second assault as early as the reign of Caliph al-Walid I (); following his death, his successor, Sulayman () continued planning the campaign, Sulayman began assembling his forces in the plain of Dabiq, north of Aleppo, entrusting the command of these forces to his brother Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik.