Syrian Jacobites welcomed Muslim conquest as deliverance from Byzantine persecution

Evidence

God, who exacts his due and who determines sovereignty among people on the earth, will give power to whom He chooses. He may appoint even the dregs of mankind to be their rulers. When He saw that the measure of the Romans’ sins was overflowing and that they were committing every sort of crime against our people and our churches, bringing our [Jacobite] Confession to the verge of extinction, He stirred up the Sons of Ishmael and enticed them hither from their southern land. This had been the most despised and disregarded of the peoples of the earth, if indeed they were known at all. Yet is was by bargaining with them that we secured our deliverance. This was no small gain, to be rescued from Roman imperial oppression. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 283 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Moreover, Byzantine Syria and Persia, the two great rival empires, were both weakened by their recent war. The emperor Heraclius had scored a Pyrrhic victory for Constantinople, a victory of little comfort to the inhabitants of Byzantine Syria. Heraclius was hoping to regain control over his eastern provinces and to reassert (by compromise or by force) Constantinople’s control over Christians it considered heretical, who had succeeded in establishing ecclesiastical independence: Armenian and Egyptian Monophysites and Syrian Jacobites. (Monophysites affirmed that Christ had only one nature, rejecting the “orthodox” Duophysite doctrine of distinct divine and human natures in Christ). The emperor also had plans to punish Jews for their alleged role in helping the Persian invaders in the recent war. The various inhabitants of the region felt battered by war and fearful of the reestablishment of Constantinople’s power. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 239 (#complicates, via linked claim)

In the wake of the Muslim conquests, little changed for the average Christian or Jewish resident of ex-Byzantine Syria. In Damascus, for example, the same family that had administered the city under Constantinople now did so for their new Muslim masters. Bureaucratic apparatuses were left in tact, and the language of administration continued to be Greek (or Persian in the former Persian empire). In the two centuries that followed, the Near East, from Egypt to Iran, became the theater of a tremendous though gradual cultural transformation: out of Greek, Persian, Arabic, Syriac, and Indian elements, a new Islamic civilization was forged. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 260 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Syrian Monophysites welcomed Muslim conquest as deliverance from Byzantine persecution. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 283; Local resentment of Byzantine religious coercion eased the Muslim conquest of Syria — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 239; Non-Orthodox Christians welcomed Muslim conquest as liberation from Byzantine persecution — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 309 (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Syrian Monophysites welcomed Muslim conquest as deliverance from Byzantine persecution. #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 283
• Local resentment of Byzantine religious coercion eased the Muslim conquest of Syria #complicates (0.90) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 239
• The Muslim conquest of Syria initially preserved Byzantine administrative continuity. #complicates (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 260