How Does the Arab World View the Roman Empire? 

The links to "The Message" (Eng. or Arabic with Eng. sub), "The Imam" (Eng. subs) and "Faris Bany Marawan" (sadly, no subs yet) are in the description

Actually, the Patriarch of Alexandria's throne and staff being decorated with Ankhs in 'The Message' would be historically authentic. The Ankh was obviously a symbol from Ancient Egyptian mythology. But it was later co-opted by the Coptic Christians because it coincidentally looks a lot like a cross. This stylized Ankh Cross became a very common local feature of Egyptian churches at the time and adorns many frescoes.

Fun fact: one of the Roman emperors was Arab (Philip the Arab)

I am not an Arab but here in Pakistan we depict the Eastern Romans at the Time of Islamic Conquests as the Cultured and Mighty Superpower of their Age against whom the Grit and Courage of the outnumbered and poorly equipped Arabian armies truly does shine. The Sassanids are regarded as Mighty and more Brutal yet we also acknowledge the debt to Persian culture and learning that much of the Muslim world owes.

Italian here so I obviously belong to the "Roman" side of the barricade . While the history books up to high school ones rarely face the topic ( universitary ones obviously going very in depth but here are talking about "popular , common" knowledge ) the general vibe is one of mutual respect between both worlds . While during war time political games and the difference between religions and culture would play a major role...during peace times it was not uncommon for the two sides to interact with one another in a much more friendly manner than one'd normally think ; for example , Frederick II's teachers were arab and he used to be fluent in the language . Arab and "Roman" scholars would occasionally get to meet with one another to study and discuss about the most recent findings in regard to their disciplines such as medicine , philosophy , astronomy and so on . Fibonacci would start to implement the arabian's numeric system over the roman one , knights and merchants themselves would sometimes get to meet with their arab counterparts and end up feeling somewhat fascinated and curious towards the other one's culture , developing friendly relationships with one another , even ending up admiring some elements of their civilization ( for example , arabian medicine was considered to be better than european one for quite a long while during the middle ages ) . It was a complicated and complex relationship for sure but not an entirely negative one as some people might think .

Arabian productions: *Depict the Eastern Roman Empire* Hollywood: "WAIT. THAT'S ILLEGAL"

There is actually a mention of Roman Emperor Decius in the Quran. This is in Surah 18, “The Cave”. The story of the people in the cave is that they were 7 young men in Syria, circa 3rd century, and they were followers of the Abrahamic faith. The Surah mentions a Roman official named “Daqyanus”, who is persecuting non-pagans. These men retreat and hide in a nearby cave, to avoid being slaughtered, in which they will sleep for 300 years. When they wake up, it is already the 6th Century. The Surah details that these men exited the cave, and found that the paganism had been replaced by Abrahamic religion (Christianity). Then the men go to a market to buy provisions, but they find that the currency had changed from 300 years ago, and that their old Roman coins had been replaced. Unfortunately, there isn’t any Television or film on this, but as I recall, this is the earliest Roman Emperor that was documented in Arab writings.

This is the highest quality Roman history channel on the entire website. Well done.

“Instead of historical Theodora, we have Thedora the sexy scheming lady, who is responsible for all the trouble and betrays like half of the Emperors” I’m glad to see that we’re keeping up with the Roman tradition of making all the women near power into evil seductresses in our media. All she’s missing is wicked eastern magicks. :p It’s always really cool seeing how other cultures view people. I remember reading about Alexander the Great and how that history is taught in the Persian regions of the world. Needless to say he’s not ‘the great’, though still seen as a very competent military leader. Seeing things from a truly alternate perspective is fascinating, even if we can never capture a lifetime of education, media and cultural vibes.

5:35 the word Sahih in Sahih al-Bukhari means truth, because al-Bukhari put so much effort investigating the truth of every word he wrote and all muslims agreed that nothing he wrote was wrong after investigating his writing and his ways of verifying The verbal transmission of events among Muslims has 4 basic degrees of validity: Sahih "true", Hasan "good", Dae'f "weak" and Mawdoo’ "wrong or lie" The story of the son in law of Abu Sufyan’s conversion to Christianity is Dae'f in terms of transmission and also contradicts what was stated in Sahih Al-Bukhari, so it is wrong

I watch basically all the major YT History channels, partly because I'm interested in (more or less) all of history and partly because I like seeing interesting and differing takes on various historical topics. This video is probably the most interesting history video I've ever seen, because you offered some fascinating insight into what non-europeans think of Rome. Great job!

Muslim Historian here. Great effort on getting the knowledge from our source literature! I am currently doing a series on the Abbasids which were neighbouring the byzantine for all of their existence, some fascinating stories there!

I am not an arab but Im turkish and here we dont really have any strong opinions on romans on either way but some people like myself really do admire what the romans(including byzantines) have accomplished and their legacy is still continuing in a sense with our lifestyles

There is also an Egyptian TV series called "Rogol Al Akdar" "رجل الأقدار" which covers the story of the conquest of Egypt by Amr ibn Al-As and his governorship period of Egypt, it shows interactions with the Romans who ruled Egypt at the time And a movie called أصحاب الكهف (The people of the cave) which speak about the sleepers of Ephesus and is set in Roman anatolia in the dawn of Christianity era

As a Muslim, I amire your research on this I love your channel, keep this up

I would love other episodes like this. Seeing more from Arab and Persian perspectives would be so cool!

As an Afghan, I can say that the Sassanian Empire was and is a very major part of our history, because although there was no Afghanistan in the 7th century, a lot of our culture is inherited from the Sassanian times.

Leo III did a little trolling. Btw, I really wanna do a 'historical fiction' book on Justinian II., as in, have all the history stay, but expand on the things we don't know about him, flesh him out as a person. He wasn't a good emperor by any means, but his 'concept' is interesting. His story just sounds like a fanmade CK3 character. And while I'm there, I think Leo III deserves one of his own. The dude is legendary and highly underrated.

Most Arabs today see the Persian empire as much more evil than the Roman empire. However I think it's important to keep in mind that this may be particularly exacerbated today due to the political strife with Iran (most Arabs are Sunnis and Iranians are mostly Shia).

I don't speak Arabic or anything but I think by focusing on the Eastern Roman Empire so much you missed out on media depictions of other Roman-Arab interactions. There was a Syrian television series from the 90s about Queen Zenobia of Palmyra and Emperor Aurelian and Levantines (and most historians) consider the Palmyrenes as their direct ancestors.

Great video, can't believe there actually exists a series about the 20 years anarchy period

Great content, thanks for the research and all the effort put into this.

13:57 I can understand that many productions about Late/Eastern Rome were low budget and had to reuse uniforms from other products about Ancient Rome (being the sword-and-sandal movies of the 60s good examples of that), but there are also high-budget productions like the movie "Agora", in which the soldiers wear completely anachronistic armor, which is simply ridiculous. At least we have the BBC productions (like "Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire" and "Heroes and Villains: Attila") and the "Total War" games, which accurately depict roman armies during the last years of the Empire

Wow. I thought most of the romaboos channels on RU-vid are quite one-dimensional, but you are something else with each video having something original.

From an Arab fan I think you did a really good job in this video!

This was great media analysis. Great combination of historical critique as well as review of these media as films separate from their historical context.

Many of the Arab historical works are produced by the Gulf and represented, written and directed by Syrians, and the rest are also Syrian productions, but with lower budgets. There is also a series called Al-Hajjaj, which is translated. The series is really amazing, talks about the person who was the cause of the expansion of the Umayyad state in such a huge way

As a Syrian. I believe we should be more proud of our Roman and byzantine history. The Levant is the only place on earth revered by all 3 abrahamic religions

I really enjoyed your latest videos. Really creative ideas and please keep making videos like this

It’s crazy to me how the Roman Empire was so influential that with all the major Abrahamic religions they occupy this sort of mythical status from being so omnipresent.

I support crowdfunding to give an image upgrade, sountrack change and English subtitiles for Faris Bany Marawan! (since it uses HP soundtrack.... IMPERIO!!!!!)

This video was great! Please more like this

This is a great topic, one I’ve never thought of before. Thank you for opening my eyes to a non western pov of the eastern Roman Empire!

I never thought to ask this question, but it was fascinating, thank you for the new info :)

Another good movie worth checking out is Al-Ababeed. Its a Syrian soap opera centered around the fall of Queen Zenobia. It features the talented actress Raghda. And while the budget is small, the cast is filled with some of the best actors in all of Syrian cinema.

What a cool idea for a video! This and the one comparing Byzantine history and HOTD are much more interesting than the 1000th video about Roman military history (though I love that topic too)

This is a *really* awesome video. Well done.

Arab here, I absolutely love this video, you are doing great work, keep doing this bro

First time on this channel and I must say, you display a lot of resorct to our religion. Thanks.

This is a well done effort. I would love to see more videos like this . Keep it up

As a muslim and from the middle east I think I can give my thoughts on how we view rome Growing up for a long time I viewed romans probably the same way most Christians in the medieval era viewed the ancient Egyptians. Age old pagan conquerors from a past beyond a past, tried to Wrong one of God's Chosen and later had to suffer the wrath of the almighty. Basic monotheistic bed time stories. Regardless as I grew up and learnt more from classes I learnt of the rise of islam and how jt changed the middle east forever. A tribe of arabs unified the peninsula and Conquered the words super-powers and beyond in less than a 100 years. By then I saw romans as more of an ancient pagan enemy of Islam same as the zoroastrian persians and Axumite king Abraha that tried besiege makkah. Finally after spending a long time revising alot of my ethno-cultural heritage and deep diving in the wonderful world of history I came upon the enigma of why much of the middle east and north Africa didn't view rome the same way as many western European and Christians did in general. 1) Race/Ethnicity This was a tough one due to how anachronistic it is as race itself wasn't really a concept in the Greco-Roman world. But due to modern influences of colonialism and nationalism. The way many middle eastern and North Africans see romans was heavily influenced by colonialism. As Europeans strongly encompassed their religion and culture around there Roman heritage. Roman culture itself is almost seen as European by the middle east. (This is by the way strictly north african and middle eastern as I'm not sure how turks see Roman Ethnicity) 2) Religion This is probably the biggest and most obvious reason, it's not surprising that most of the middle east is in fact muslim (of course with some amounts of Native Christian population) Now if we get into the technicality, both Islam and Christianity are the only 2 religions on earth that accept the existence of Jesus and the role he played on this earth in his time. Therefore when the crucifixion is brought into place, many Muslims feel both horrified and saddened that a Messenger of God was treated so Vile by the Pagans of the land and this has left a generational long Loathing towards Rome itself with even the prophet Muhammad (PBUH) having prophesies the Fall of Rome. Adding on to this, the Christians had after centuries managed to occupy most of rome through proselytizing and building firm institutions across the Greco-Roman world an with the Fall of Western Rome and the rise of islam, the Germanic Barbarians had slowly began to spread the cross among their kin further into the European continent. This gave rise the eventual crusades Kickstarting the generational long animosity Muslims had for Christians. And the sad decline of the AL andalus and the Eastern Roman empire (Again this is just mainly "Franks or western Christians as many eastern syriac, coptic or sometimes Orthodox were alot more welcome in many muslim households due to closer proximity) The crusades are up there with colonialism and mongol conquests as one of the darkest moments in middle eastern history. (Apart from modern history unfortunately) Thr mongols and crusaders were ruthless and this had broke alot of the more diverse and Accepting characteristics much if the middle east had towards other religions Especially with the collapse of the enlightened Arab Caliphate and much of the hellenicz zoroastrian, Latin or foreign influences weren't looked as kindly upon as they once were. This became alot worse with the Fall of Baghdad and the arrival of the mamelukes, turks, berbers. The islamic world became subsumed in the chaos of the Mid - late medieval period and took on much more militaristic Fashion as the turko-Mongol influences began to seep into the islamic word and the old era concept of Jihad became revitalized to better survive the violent rise of powerful states in the region. 3) I've written aloto so I'll keep it sweet. Overall the gap widened with thr Fall of both the western and Eastern rome and the rise of islam and the expansion of christendom. Conflicting interests and cultural- Religious divide gave birth to a segregation that couldn't be easily fixed. (Quick note - just like to add that there are multiple sources used to show the bipartisan outlook the muslim world had to Christianity. Byzantine stone-mason and builders helped construct the Grand mosque of cordoba, one of the greatest architectural accomplishments of Al Andalus Books could be written about the relationship between founder of the Carolingian dynasty and father of Western Europe Charlemagne and one of the Greatest islamif Caliphs of the islamic Golden age Harun Ar Rashid (Aaron the Righly Guided) Before the mongols/turkic invasions and rise of the papacy and religious intolerance in general The vestiges of the Greco-Roman world were still present to some degree as many across the Mediterranean would still not feel the divide as strongly as their later descendants would.

فيديو جميل صراحه حلو ان الواحد يسمع وجهات نظر متعدده عن وقائع تاريخيه، استفدت اشياء كثيره منك استمر ياصاحبي

Thanks for posting very Informative.

Thank you for making this video. Wow.

Hell yeah. Not enough folks put out videos on the later / eastern empire.

Love your videos!

well done, I appreciate your research, and your effort. i very much enjoyed it

This is very well researched and measured. Excellent.

Am I the only one who expected a language learning sponsor? 😄 I really enjoyed watching this video! 👍

Great video and well done on the impressive amount of research you put into this. Further episodes on the depiction of the Eastern Romans from other countries would be brilliant. Turkish is a great idea. Perhaps there are also some interesting depictions from Bulgaria, Greece and Russia?

Brilliant work addressing the nuances and inconsistencies that have always been there (for those that read up on this subject).

Very cool, unique perspective. Thanks for making this video.

As a Muslim personally I admire the Romans and I see them as a proof that hard work and dedication is the strongest weapon men could have .

Seeing you talk about thus Syrian show made me so sad. What Syria was and what it has become is seriously one of the greatest tragedies of the 2010s. I really don't want to get all political here or blame the Americans for looking after their own interests but seriously I hope that Syria can get rid of Nato forces occupying over 1/3 of their territory and I hope they can conquer back their oil fields from american troops to hopefully one day rebuild their country and give us treats such as this show again.

Thanks for the tv show recommendtions.

Very high quality video. Bravo

Nice video and I enjoyed it❤..But there is a series, almost the most famous historical Arab series, and the largest of them in terms of budget is the Omar series, and the Romans were present in it, and the character of Hercules was present

Very nice! I'm learning about history I hadn't known before! Thanks also for specifying that you're talking about the Eastern Roman empire (also known as Byzantium). I also notice you use the word "whomever" correctly - this is something most Americans cannot do. Very nice video overall.

what a fantastic video , combines eastern roman, islamic history and arab cinema . Fantastic !!

Fascinating work. Brilliant

You haven’t mentioned it; but Nikephoros was an ethnically Arab from the Levant, so he was always portrayed as a fierce rival to his own people by Arab historians. Also he was in the same period of probably the most famous Caliph in Arab literature, Harun Al-Rasheed, so Arab writers portrayed him as the nemesis of Harun Al-Rasheed. The two exchanged threats and messages for years, and one of the most famous quotes from Harun was a declaration of war to Nikephoros after the latter stopped paying tribute to the Abbasid's Caliph, where he said: "From Harun, the Commander of the Believers, to Naqfur the Dog of the Romans. I read your message; and my response to you is what you see and not what you hear, Salam (Peace) on you”. The Abbasids would later beat The Romans in the Battle of Krasos, and Nikephoros was forced to pay tribute again to Harun Al-Rasheed.

For the pre Islamic: you can find "العبابيد" "Al Ababid" covering Palmyra war with the Romans in details...... It's a Syrian production ao you can expect the same quality of the one you mentioned...... The point is that those are old TV series going back to late 90s and early 2000s so when those were made even HD (720p) was not a thing.

Very balanced and critical historical research. Great video!

great video thanks

Very interesting video, as always. Thank you!

Regarding the time period you've covered, I've seen documentaries and have read books on the Eastern Roman Empire, but I don't recall ever having seen a movie about it. English subtitles would be good.

Nikephoros I Had heritage tying back to the Ghassanids, a Arab Christian tribe from the Levant, a German king actually gave a physical description of him as having dark curly hair and “the skin of an Ethiopian”. People forget that there were Arab Christians long before there were Arab Muslims.

Fascinating history. Good stuff.

I love that you are using CK3 music soundtrack in the video and the historical detail there. You just get a subs.

Arabs in the middle ages had some respect to the romans especially the ones in spain and you can see that in their literature and historical books But modern arabs they couldn’t care less about the romans To them they are nothing but a classic enemies just like the greek and Persians

A really nice depiction of the media and the history great video. As a Muslim the message is my favorite movie and i can only recomend it to everyone

I love old-fashioned historical epics. Will check out. Thanks

5:53 the narration is far more reliable than most of what we know from the dark ages and there was no son of Abu Sufyan who converted to christianity from islam, i couldn't find anything that would support this claim

Dude you are a freaking hero going down the rabbit hole. You just earned a ton of respect from me with this video, besides being an awesome video in itself the fact that you have brought to light this hidden jewel (Faris Bany Marawan) is blowing my mind. This is the shit for what I stalk the internet the other day had a whim about Qing dinasty China and I finded this yutuber guy that has an awesome channel about it and the images he uses to depict some characters are from obscure chinese tvshows about the lives of some emperors, so I tracked this shows and I've been binging the entire history of emperors Kangxi and Yongzhen. Now this you have brought is even better I'm gona dive right into it and find whats going on with those subs and ask to people, we need to tap into this...

Very good video 👍

Omg, I remember some of those series in my childhood, this is very nostalgic.

It's rare to come across an open and objective attempt to delve into Arabic media, especially when discussing themes of empire, religion and war. Also, the remaster recommendation was funny af it caught me completely off guard.

This video and the HRE video has made me interested in this channel, as a Muslim myself, I respect the Romans, conquering that much land during that era is an impressive feat, and maintaining it for a long time is as well, well done to you, and I hope you reach high levels of success in the future.

Nice video brother

wouw bro just wouw. epic content. keep it up. new sub

During a period of chaos in the Arab-Islamic world, You guys are just making your own history . Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, is higher than you and your God, Jesus

I think arabs from the arabian peninsula view romans as historical enemies, just like how german barbarians viewed them before. Arabs from the levant (especially in Syria and lebanon) however view the roman empire as part if their history. We are even taught that in school to kind of embrace it as part of Syrian history. There is also a large christian population in both countries and they have a longing for Rome more than westerners, because its like their father who left them. In syria they focus alot about syrian history to strengthen the syrian identity obviously. They teach us about the roman rebellion that happened in palmyra where queen Zenobia claimed alot of land for her own. We see that as the first true syrian empire. Even when they teach us about islamic history they focus alot more on the umayyad caliphate which was established by Muawiyah I who was the governor of syria. He made Damascus the caliphates capital.

Good stuff.

i did not know that, thank you !

I've thought a lot about this as well. I feel like there is a respect, but also a feeling of superiority.

There are many deferences between Arabs of Arabic peninsula and the arabized people of the Levant Syria, Lebanon Palestine Jordan. The levantines had contributed so much for the Roman empire even with emperors and royal families. Not to forget the Syrian- Greek greatest architect Apollodorus of Damascus who built a lot of famous places in Rome

Subscribed, high quality production that improves my vocabulary

It's verry interesting and amazing description..infortunatly i don't inderstend the English. Have you think to translate in Arabic or franch or italien..:) . Thanks for this job!

As an Arab and a history buff I really wish our period pieces had better historical accuracy and production quality. the classical arabic dialogue is fun though.

1. Most of the Islamic movies and series are made in Iran and they are very good but are often overlooked because Iran is a Shia Muslim country. So there is a lot of descriminiation against Shia sect in the Muslim world even though most of the Shias are peaceful aside from politics and all of them are Muslims. 2. Anyways, Iran made a very memorable series featuring The Western Roman Empire called "The Men of Angelos". Its the story about the seven Christian sleepers which is mentioned in Jewish, Christian and Islamic relgion. It's very good series. The filmmakers of this series gifted the copy of this series to the pope of that time. Dont forget to check that out.

Yes, more of this. It's pretty interesting

This video is very interesting

Leo was known to be "saracen minded" and he also spoke arabic i think he definitely had origins from syria

I really liked this video, and I am surprised that the Arabs have made an effort to depict the Eastern Romans well.

Wow that’s actually fun to watch

What I find amazing is that to the Arabs, the Eastern Roman Empire is simply THE Roman Empire. It's treated with substantially more care than, I would argue, in the west (except greece and turkey). Islam relatively young age at the time offers an interesting perspective on that matter. I hope in the future that we would see more TV shows whether dramatic or otherwise that would depict the Roman-Arab history with more moderation in bias.

أنا عربي و احترم الرومان جداً العرب كانوا شجعان و عظماء و الرومان أيضاً كانوا شجعان و عظماء ❤

If you're going to look into Turkish stuff I think they're are some productions with Spanish language dubs out there. IDK how historical they are though.

Great video, I find middle eastern media fascinating. Still, would have liked to see some interviews of people on the street, asking them what they know about Rome. Would be interesting how this contrasts to other nations.

I love the CK3 music in the background :)