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The Battle of Yarmouk (Arabic: معركة اليرموك‎, also spelled Yarmuk, Yarmuq or, in Greek, Hieromyax Ἱερομυαξ ) was a major battle between the Muslim Arab forces of the Rashidun Caliphate and the armies of the East Roman-Byzantine Empire. The battle consisted of a series of engagements that lasted for six days in August 636, near the Yarmouk River, along what is today the border between Syria and Jordan, south-east of the Sea of Galilee. The result of the battle was a complete Muslim victory which permanently ended Byzantine rule south of Anatolia. The Battle of Yarmouk is regarded as one of the most decisive battles in military history,[4][5] and it marked the first great wave of Islamic conquests after the death of Muhammad, heralding the rapid advance of Islam into the then Christian Levant.

The Yarmuk river forms boundaries between Jordan, Syria, and Israel, all of which have contested its use as a water source. About fifty miles (80 km) long, the Yarmuk rises in southern Syria and flows westward through a deep gorge along the Jordanian border of the Golan Heights region of Syria annexed by Israel in 1981. It empties into the Jordan river four miles (6.4 km) south of the Sea of Galilee. Although much smaller than the Euphrates (in Turkey, north Syria, and Iraq) or even the Litani (in Lebanon), the Yarmuk supplies up to 50 percent of the water flow in the lower Jordan river.

The Yarmuk shares a long and storied past with the Jordan river valley, as recounted in archaeological evidence, holy scripture and medieval chronicles. A Roman fortress town was built at the junction of the two rivers, and ruins of Roman- and Byzantine-era synagogues have been found nearby. In the early seventh century, it was through the Yarmuk gorge that Arab armies invaded the Jordan valley.

The Yarmuk's strategic importance has continued into the modern era. Today, it is the only undeveloped tributary of the Jordan river, in a region that now exploits the maximum capacity of existing water sources. Its only significant exploitation has been Jordan's East Ghawr Canal, built in 1964 to irrigate thirty thousand acres (12,150 ha) of farmland east of the Jordan river. Jordan plans to extend the nearly 50-mile (80-km) canal and build a 328-foot (100-m) dam at Maqarin to store the Yarmuk's waters for agriculture and for the cities of Irbid and Amman. Syria plans a series of small dams on the upper Yarmuk to benefit agriculture in the Hawran region.