Abstract

Early Muslims conquest of both empires of Eastern Romans and Persians brought lots of slaves, wealth and sources in the form of materials, and knowledge in Arabia, which initiated cultural diffusion in Arabia and Muslims became familiar with the Greek and Romans tradition of historical knowledge. Muslim historians amalgamated the external and internal world views of knowledge into a new paradigm and developed new forms of historical work such as the geographical histories and universal histories. Muslim historians described the formation of Roman Empire and development of Constantinople and its relations with Arabs and Islamic empire. Muslim sources narrated the wars of Arab Muslims towards Constantinople under the religio-political paradigm. Muslims historiographical work explained less about the Arab Muslims siege and attack on Constantinople but emphasized the reasons which forced them to fight against the Romans. For example, Tabari described seasonal raids of Arab Muslims on the lands of Romans at the end of each annual year. Two major Arab Muslims sieges and attacks were made on Constantinople in the seventh and the eighth centuries, first, in the time of Caliph Muawiya (R.A) and second in the time of Caliph Sulayman bin Abdul Malik. Despite the conquests on all fronts, Arab Muslim armies failed in their attempts to conquer Constantinople, because of internal political crises, environmental hindrance and fortification of Constantinople.