THIS BOOK IS the product of several undergraduate courses and seminars I have taught during the last few years about conversion, urbanization, pilgrimage, and migration in the Middle East. Many of its concepts, insights, and ideas were developed and crystallized during the courses’ preparation and through discussions held with my students. I am grateful to them for their collaboration and feedback. Many friends and colleagues shared their vast knowledge with me and helped me finish this ambitious project. We have discussed different related subjects, and they shared publications with me and provided me with photos and illustrations: Prof. Mustafa Abbasi, Prof. Reuven Amitai, Arie Bar, Prof. Haim Ben-David, Dr. Katia Cytryn-Silverman, Dr. Eyal Davidson, Prof. Nahem Ilan, Dr. Raphael Lewis, Prof. Joseph Patrich, Ron Peled, Dr. Kate Raphael, Meir Roter, Dr. Doron Sar-Avi, Raffi Shalev, and Prof. Yinon Shivtiel. I also miss the fruitful discussions with my colleague Prof. Ronnie Ellenblum, who passed away a year ago. We seldom agreed, but his innovative, intriguing, and sometimes provocative ideas and insights significantly contributed to this research. I am always in debt to my great teachers, Prof. Yvonne Friedman and Prof. Yaacov Lev, who accompanied my career from its earliest stages. I often discussed this book with them, and they were always kind, supportive, responsive, and insightful.

Arc Humanities Press staff have been professional and helpful. I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewer, whose comments were greatly beneficial and significantly improved the book's final version. I am also grateful to Marty Friedlander for editing the book's final version.

My family continuously tolerated me during the long process of this book's writing, including the challenging days of quarantine we experienced. My eldest son Yishay was the first to read the book and made many helpful and valuable comments. I want to heartfully thank him, my other children, Netta and Gilad, and especially my wife Bracha. It would have been impossible to bring this project to an end without their love and support.

THE NEGEV DESERT constitutes the entire area between the Shiqma stream (Wādī al-Ḥasī) to the north and the Red Sea to the south, the borders between Israel, the Gaza Strip, and Egypt to the west, and the Arava streambed between the Dead Sea and the Red Sea along the Israeli–Jordanian border to the east. The Negev is divided into three main regions: the area of Beer Sheba, with nearly 200 mm of rain per annum in average; the Negev Highlands, with 100 mm p.a.; and the area of Eilat, with 20 mm p.a. These variances dictate significant variances in the settlement pattern. The northern area, around Beer Sheba, allows for agriculture and for the existence of large settlements. The Negev Highlands enable agriculture in specific ecological niches, and settlements of limited size, whereas the climate of Eilat only sustains agriculture around oases, and the settlements in this region are few and rather small. Nomads lived across the entire region, though in small numbers.

The Early Islamic Period

The Negev prospered during the Byzantine period. In the north, Beer Sheba was an urban centre surrounded by villages, farms, and monasteries. The population of the Negev Highlands was concentrated in the city of Elusa and various semi-urban settle-ments, known today as the Desert Cities of the Negev, as well as various rural settle-ments.There was also a city in Ayla, on the Red Sea coast, more than 200 kilometres to the south of the desert cities. These were separate areas; the great distance between the Highlands and the Red Sea, combined with the difficulties and dangers along the road, caused the two areas to develop independently.

In the Roman Empire, a city was a settlement whose urban status was confirmed as such by the authorities. Cities were built according to a specific plan featuring several typical institutions and buildings. In later periods, a city would have an episcopal see. Therefore, although the urban centre in Beer Sheba had several urban characteristics, it was not considered a city. No coins minted in Beer Sheba have ever been found, it was not described by contemporaries as a civitas, and it did not have an episcopal see. However, it was a large settlement with a military camp and several churches, indicators of Beer Sheba's urban character. The same applies to the so-called “Desert Cities.”

IN HIS SEMINAL work, Conversion to Islam in the Medieval Period, Richard Bulliet emphasizes that the “timetables of conversion differed from one region of the Islamic world to another and that these regional differences were reflected in political and institutional developments that depended to some degree upon the conversion process.” Basically, that statement voices the same fundamental attitude as I have presented in this study. However, Bulliet mostly deals with larger geographical units, such as Iran, Iraq, and Syria, whereas this study focuses on much smaller regions.

The historical review presented in the previous chapters clearly indicates that there were major variations in the character and the timetable of the Islamization process in different areas of the Holy Land, and that the conversion process varied among different religious groups. Those differences may even be discerned in neighbouring regions. For example, the Jewish communities of Lower Galilee converted to Islam much earlier than those in Upper Galilee.

Throughout this book, I have defined Islamization according to three criteria: religious conversion to Islam, Arabization, namely, transition from the use of local languages to Arabic, and the Islamization of the landscape, i.e., addition of Islamic elements such as mosques and shaykh tombs to the regional landscape. There were significant variations between the conversion in the different regions and Islamization of the landscape in those regions. In the next few pages, we will examine the spread of these phenomena in the Holy Land from the Muslim conquest to the end of the eighteenth century.

One phenomenon that apparently occurred continuously throughout the period was a contraction of the population of the Holy Land. According to leading scholars, the pre-modern period when the Holy Land's population was at its highest was the Byzantine period, before the outbreak of the bubonic plague. Yoram Tsafrir estimates that western Palestine's population at the time was around one million people; other scholars have suggested even higher figures. The destruction that presumably accompanied the Muslim conquest led, according to many scholars, to a sharp decline in the Holy Land's population. Based on the Ottoman census of 1596–7, the total population of the areas reviewed in this study was approximately 260,000 people. This study intentionally steers away from the quantitative debate to focus on the population's religious profile, without regard for its size.

THIS CHAPTER DEALS with the Holy Land's littoral, from Tyre in the north to Rafaḥ in the south. North of Jaffa, the width (west to east) of this area does not exceed twenty kilometres. The littoral's southern part (between Jaffa and Rafaḥ) includes the region of the Judean foothills, known as Shefela in Hebrew, and its average width is about forty kilometres.

Early Islamic Period

During the Roman–Byzantine periods, the coastal plain was the most important region of the provinces of Palestine and Phoenicia. The capital cities of these two provinces, Caesarea and Tyre, were large port cities. Both cities also had metropolitan archiepiscopal sees and were home to many churches of different types and sizes that were spread throughout the area, of which the remains of about one hundred have been found. During this period, many of the provincial political, cultural, administrative, and religious elites of Palestine and Phoenicia lived in Caesarea and Tyre, and in nearby cities. This period of prosperity ended once the area was conquered by the Muslims. Although the Muslims did not destroy the coastal cities, they moved the administrative centres of their nascent empire inland. Scholars concur that the Muslims transferred the capital of Palestina Prima from Caesarea to Ramla. However, since Ramla was only founded about seventy years after the conquest, it is clear that the Muslims established a temporary capital until Ramla was ready to serve as a provincial capital. Scholars suggested that this provisional capital was either ʿAmwās, Lydda, or Jerusalem. After the 710s, the capital was transferred to Ramla; as far as this study is concerned, the exact venue of the previous capital city is irrelevant.

The province of Phoenicia was dismantled following the conquest, and its southern district, which included Tyre, was annexed to Jund al-Urdunn, whose capital city was Tiberias. Subsequently, the coastal cities declined. Some of them, such as the satellite cities that had evolved during the Byzantine period around Ascalon and Gaza, ceased to exist as cities.

The coastal plain was apparently the area of Holy Land that was most affected by the Muslim conquest. It lost its privileged status, and subsequently, many members of the highest echelons of provincial society who resided in the coastal plain emigrated, never to return. Later, Umayyad clients were settled in some of the region's cities.

WHEN THE PROPHET Muhammad died in 632 CE, Syria was a battered region. It had been afflicted by frequent outbreaks of the “Justinianic Plague” for nearly a century and was still recovering from the recent Sasanian conquest in 614 and Byzantine reconquest in 629. These events facilitated the Muslim conquest of Syria, starting in 634. This conquest, and the various processes and events that followed it, eventually led to the conversion to Islam of most of the local population. Conversion occurred in many other regions, as well. In most areas conquered by the Muslims around the Mediterranean, religious conversion was accompanied by a shift from the vernacular languages to Arabic, emigration of local elites and immigration of Muslims, many of them Arabs, and changes in the urban network, as well as substantial changes to the plans of those Roman–Byzantine cities that continued to exist during the Early Islamic period.

The aim of this book is to answer three basic questions: when, where, and under what circumstances did the majority of the Holy Land's population become Muslim? Its working hypothesis is that the causes that led to the conversion of most of the Holy Land's population, as well as the survival of some religious communities, are essentially social and geographic in nature, rather than theological. Namely, conditions in some regions facilitated conversion, whereas in other areas they did not. Consequently, local communities in those areas resisted conversion more vigorously. This book does not deal with issues such as the economic or social pressure exerted by Muslim authorities. Those measures were presumably imposed indiscriminately on all religious communities, in all regions, and in rural areas as well as urban ones.

I suggest that two parallel processes were the main catalysts of Islamization: de-urbanization and urbanization. In areas where existing urban nuclei were abolished, nearby rural communities converted to Islam. Similarly, the establishment of an urban centre in a previously rural region facilitated the conversion of the nearby villages’ populations. However, in areas where the pre-existing cities endured, the minorities managed to survive. In my opinion, the continuous existence of cities over the centuries allowed for the survival of religious and social institutions, which played a vital role in the survival of urban and rural religious communities.

SAMARIA IS A mountainous region located between the mountains of Judea to the south, the Jezreel Valley to the north, the Jordan Valley to the east, and the coastal plain to the west. This study distinguishes between the southern part of Samaria, whose principal city is Nablus, and the northern region, whose centre was first in Sebaste, and later in Jinīn.

Early Islamic Period

Until the Roman period, most of Samaria's inhabitants were either pagans or Samaritans. In the second century bce, Samaria, the capital of the former Kingdom of Israel, became the base for a Greek military force. In the late first century bce, Herod established a new city in Samaria, and named it Sebaste in honour of his benefactor, the Roman emperor Augustus.

In 72 CE, the Romans established a colony in Neapolis, outside the site of Biblical Shechem. Magen posits that the population of the colony was not originally Samaritan but was composed of Roman veterans of various origins. However, during later periods, the Samaritan segment of the city, built near Mount Gerizim, the mountain venerated by the Samaritans, grew increasingly larger. By the beginning of the Byzantine period, Neapolis became the city with the largest Samaritan population and the main Samaritan religious centre, where many Samarian dignitaries and their religious leadership lived. Ever since its establishment as a Roman colony, Neapolis has overshadowed Sebaste as the regional centre. Subsequently, Sebaste's Samaritan community became less important, after which it disappears in sources from the Early Islamic period.

For about a century and a half before the Muslim conquest, the Samaritans, who constituted a major segment of the region's population, repeatedly rebelled against the Byzantine empire. These revolts apparently led to a significant decrease in the Samaritan population. However, two sources seem to indicate that the results of these revolts were less dramatic than usually believed. The anonymous pilgrim from Piacenza, who visited the area around 570, describes the Samaritan communities in the area around Sebaste:

THE AREA DISCUSSED in this chapter includes the city of Jerusalem and its vicinity, bordered on the west by the foothills of the Judean Mountains, the regions of Bethlehem and Ramallah to the south and the north, respectively, and the Judean Desert to the east. However, since the desert was mostly uninhabited throughout history, the conversion of its population is not discussed here. The discussion also includes the area of Hebron and its vicinity, as well as the region of Karak, to the south-east of the Dead Sea.

Jerusalem

Jerusalem is one of the most studied cities in the world. It has a documented history lasting nearly four thousand years, and Jerusalem's Old City and its environs have been thoroughly excavated over the past century and a half. Therefore, I do not claim to encompass the entire history of Jerusalem between the years 638 and 1800, nor the entire body of studies relating to the city's history during this long period. However, I believe that the data and studies presented here fairly portray the events that led to Jerusalem's Islamization.

Early Islamic Period

Byzantine Jerusalem was an exclusively Christian city. Jews were explicitly forbidden from entering, and its transformation from a Roman city into an important pilgrimage destination, and subsequently to a Patriarchal see, converted it into a Christian space. The city expanded, with many churches and monasteries inside and outside its walls.3 But when the Muslims conquered the city, this reality changed. The well-known (but likely later fabrication) amān agreement between the Muslim conquerors and Jerusalem's residents included several important stipulations: the Muslims pledged to respect the residents’ property, enshrine their freedom of religion, not destroy or confiscate churches, and ensure that Jews did not reside in Jerusalem alongside the Christians. The authenticity of this text is disputed by scholars. Shelomo D. Goitein contends it is a false document, primarily since Jews lived in Jerusalem throughout the Early Islamic period, whereas Moshe Gil and others argue that despite some inaccuracies, it is mostly a genuine document. Both opinions have clear disadvantages. Goitein's opinion contradicts a document that was, even if fabricated post-factum, accepted as genuine by the contemporary population of Jerusalem.

THE AREA KNOWN as Galilee includes the southern part of Lebanon, from the Līṭānī River to the Israeli border (Jabal ʿĀmil), as well as the northern district of Israel, from the Lebanese border to the northern foothills of the Samaria mountains. The east to west dimensions of Galilee include the northern part of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. This book extends the borders of Galilee eastward, to include the Golan Heights and the Decapolis region, which are east of the Jordan River. It should be noted, however, that the northern coastal plain, from ʿAtlit to the Lītānī, has been discussed in the previous chapter.

This area is subdivided into the following regions: Western, Upper, and Lower Gali-lee, Jabal ʿĀmil, the Golan Heights and the Decapolis. These regions comprise an area that is almost identical to that of the Early Islamic district of Jund al-Urdunn.

Western Galilee

Western Galilee is a modern Israeli name which did not exist in earlier periods. It includes the western half of the Galilee mountains, from the foothills to the midway point between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. In this book, the foothill settlements are discussed in the previous chapter. Western Galilee, which constituted the mountainous hinterland of Tyre and Acre, was exclusively rural. It was bypassed by the main regional roads, with the exception of a road that connected Damascus and Acre during the Crusader period until 1187. Western Galilee lacked important trade centres, as well as important shrines and pilgrimage destinations. As a result, it was not described, and consequently there is very limited written information about the region.

Early Islamic Period

During the Roman and Byzantine periods, Western Galilee was divided between the provinces of Phoenicia and Judea, and later Palestina. This division reflected the spheres of influence of the coastal cities of Tyre and Acre, respectively. These cities dictated the cultural and religious profile of the region, whose population was mostly Christian. The Christianity of the area's population is attested to by the existence of sixty-seven churches in this region, fifty of them in rural areas. Some archaeological remains indicating Jewish presence in the area have also been found, but only sporadically.