Research On Hegemony Over The Mediterranean Between Byzantine And Arab In The 7-8th Century And The Significance Of The Times

In 632 after the reunification of the Arabian Peninsula, Arabs quickly rushed out of it under the banner of Islam, defeating the ancient Persian Empire to the east and attacking the Byzantine Empire westward. The struggle between the Arabs and the Byzantine Empire concentrated in the Mediterranean. After three stages of contest, the Arabs occupied the southern coast, surrounding Europe from the west. Then the Mediterranean was no longer Roman's sea, but was divided into two parts: one is the western Mediterranean controlled by Muslim, the other by Byzantine Empire. The Arabs'expansion resulted in the disappearance of the unity of the Mediterranean. Each entity that communicated with the Mediterranean as the intermediacy in the past entered into a new journey. The Mediterranean was gradually separated into three parts: the western barbarian part, eastern Roman Empire and the southern Arab Empire. Byzantine Empire lost affluent Egypt, Syria and North Africa in the expansion of Arabs. The territories to the west only reached the southern part of Italy. The loss of these territories made the Empire policies become easternized. The contradiction between the west and the east became aggravated. Because of the adjustment of Byzantine policies and the enclosure of Islam toward the western Mediterranean, the western countries lost their free rights there, gradually turning into a closed state and entering into the self-sufficient agricultural economy times, which laid foundation for the Feudal system in western Europe. Because the Arabs'expansion in the Mediterranean was limited, their strategy was changed from controlling the Mediterranean to establishing the empire based on the continents.