page_title: Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik
section_title: War efforts
hierarchical_section_title: Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik / Caliphate / War efforts
caption_attribution_description: Български: Миниатюра 47 от Манасиевата летопис, 14 век: Нападението на арабите над Константинопол по време на император Лъв III. English: Miniature 47 from the Constantine Manasses Chronicle, 14 century: The arabs attacking Constantinople during the reign of emperor Leo III.
context_page_description: Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik was the seventh Umayyad caliph, ruling from 23 February 715 until his death. As governor of Palestine during the reigns of his father Caliph Abd al-Malik and brother Caliph al-Walid I, he was mentored by the theologian Raja ibn Haywa al-Kindi and forged close ties with Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, a major opponent of al-Walid's powerful viceroy of Iraq and the eastern Caliphate, al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, whose influence over the caliph was resented by Sulayman. He founded the city of Ramla and in it, his palace and the White Mosque. It superseded Lydda, which was at least partly destroyed and whose inhabitants may have been forcibly relocated to Ramla. Ramla developed into an economic hub and became home to numerous Muslim scholars, continuing as the administrative capital of Palestine until the 11th century.
  After succeeding al-Walid, Sulayman dismissed his predecessor's governors and generals.
context_section_description: Though he largely replaced their governors, Sulayman maintained his predecessors' militarist policies. Nonetheless, during his relatively short reign, the territorial expansion of the Caliphate that occurred under al-Walid virtually came to a halt, partly as the result of more effective resistance from local forces. This was not an indication that "the impulse of expansion and conquest slackened" under Sulayman, according to Eisener. In 716/717, his governor Yazid conquered the principalities of Jurjan and Tabaristan, both located along the southern coast of the Caspian Sea. The campaign lasted for four months and involved a 100,000-strong army derived from the garrisons of Kufa, Basra, Rayy, Merv and Syria. It marked the first deployment of Syrian troops, the elite military faction of the Caliphate, to Khurasan. In a letter, Yazid congratulated Sulayman on the conquests of the two territories, which had eluded previous caliphs until "God made this conquest on behalf" of Sulayman "in order to bestow His honor upon him, and in order to increase the blessing He has bestowed upon him". 
  The caliph's principal military focus was the war with Byzantium. He appointed his son Dawud to lead a summer campaign against the Byzantine frontier, during which he captured Hisn al-Mar'a ("the Woman's Fortress") near Malatya. In late 716, after returning from the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, Sulayman encamped and mobilized his army in Dabiq in northern Syria. From there, he oversaw the massive war effort against the Byzantines. He dispatched his half-brother, Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, to besiege the Byzantine capital of Constantinople via land with orders to remain until the city was conquered or he was recalled by the caliph. Already from early 716, the Arab commander Umar ibn Hubayra al-Fazari had launched a naval campaign against Constantinople. Sulayman's efforts ultimately failed as the Byzantines repulsed the Umayyad sieges in the early summer of 717 and summer of 718.
caption: A 14th-century illustration of the siege of Constantinople
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