Early Christians read the Arab conquests as apocalyptic end-times prophecy

Evidence

For some Christian authors, the Arab invaders were something more than a mere divine chastisement: they were actors in the divine drama of the last days. In other words, the invasions represented the beginning of the end of time, as predicted by the Hebrew prophets, the Gospels, and the Book of Revelation. The author of an anonymous anti-Jewish text, the Doctrine of Jacob Recently Baptized (634), sees the Arab conquests as anything but temporary. He interprets the four beasts described by the prophet Daniel, in the quite standard way, as four successive world empires, the last of which is Rome. Yet for him, the current invasions mark the end: “If the fourth beast, that is, the Roman Empire, is reduced, torn asunder and shattered, as Daniel said, verily there will be no other, except the ten claws and the ten horns of the fourth beast, and afterwards a little horn, completely different, which has knowledge of God. Immediately there will take place the end of the universe and the resurrection of the dead.” The ten claws and ten horns are traditionally seen as a series of persecutors of God’s people; the Doctrine here identified the Arabs as the eleventh, little horn. To receive such an important role in the drama of the final days, the new invaders must have some religious significance. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 308

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 308