Eh... Well... I have my problems with this. First of all, is it before the invasion of the Levant? Second of all, how much of the Christians will favor East Roman rule over Abbasid/Buyid Rule?
In theory it could. But that will require somewhat successful conquest of the Levant AND Egypt in 10 years time and consolidate power there. However, with all this, I think it will be really hard as the East Romans are pretty harsh to non-Greek Orthodox population and the regions they want is pretty much not their religion. And when religious persecution happens, conquest lasts less.
One can estimate that the 'Nestorian' Christians in Iraq would not be the main allies of a Byzantine rule, assuming the Byzantines play their card correctly. Their allies can come from the Shi'a of the region, assuming that the Byzantines confer to them rights over other religious groups in the area.At the time of the proposed (I assume) Byzantine conquest, the Shi'a of all varieties are rigidly persecuted by the Abbasid throne and not allowed pilgrimages.
I remember that the the part of Syria reconquered by the East Romans in the 10th century was largely Ismaili (who would later become Alawite). If I'm not mistaken...
The Byzantines distinctly didn't want to incorporate Muslims into their state. In fact there is an argument to made that the abandonment of attempts to regain Anatolia was based in part the realization that the population had become too Islamic.
While they had no major issues with ethnic heterogeneity, they had very strong views about the people within the bosom of the Empire being of the True Faith (as they saw it).
Or to put it less poetically, they were intolerant sods - if quite willing to accept tribute and the occasional alliance.
The Byzantines distinctly didn't want to incorporate Muslims into their state. In fact there is an argument to made that the abandonment of attempts to regain Anatolia was based in part the realization that the population had become too Islamic.
While they had no major issues with ethnic heterogeneity, they had very strong views about the people within the bosom of the Empire being of the True Faith (as they saw it).
Or to put it less poetically, they were intolerant sods - if quite willing to accept tribute and the occasional alliance.
I mean you can argue this but there were some very real attempts to reconquer the Anatolian Highlands from the Turk (most notably at Myriokephalon). The Byzantines throughout their post-Arab history had conquered or tried to conquer many “heathen or infidel” peoples: the early Bulgars, the Slavs, Arab populations, Turks, etc. Hell, Justinian II settled thousands of pagan Slavs in Anatolia to repopulate the farms there in the late 7th century. No doubt he made them become nominal Christians but I don’t think he had any illusions that they weren’t really very converted.
I would argue that whenever the Byzantines refused to “conquer non-Christian peoples” it was more due to their inability to do so rather than just a moral refusal to do so.
I think you may have misconstrued my post. Obviously the Byzantines attempted to regain lost provinces, when they could, if they could, until their military resources became insufficient. However, from the 9th century on, they were very reluctant to acquire/reacquire territories that enjoyed substantial Muslim populations - the kind of numbers that were too large to expel, too dangerous to try to forcibly convert. Simply put, they saw themselves as the Christian state, and having large religious minorities was pretty much anathema. Hence why they often accepted tributary Islamic states (their history in North Syria, is very revealing about all this.).