Islamic Period
The rise of Islam led to large areas of the Near East coming under the rule of Muslim Arabs. This resulted in substantial Christian populations coming under Islamic rule.
Initially, the invasions were seen by the occupied as more like a large-scale raid with tribute being paid. Possibly the Arabs saw things in these terms themselves; certainly their policy was to allow the existing administration to continue, but the taxes gathered to be paid to themselves rather than to the Byzantine emperor or the Persian Shah.
Christians did not at first compose in Arabic, but continued to write in Greek, Syriac or Coptic. However, over time as conversions occurred, there was a need for works in Arabic. The first to write in Arabic was Theodore Abu-Qurrah and Severus Ibn al-Muqaffa.
Read more about this topic: History Of Arab Christians
Famous quotes containing the word period:
“When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)