Palestine A Four Thousand Year History by Nur Masalha

Before the arrival of Islam the Arab Christians of Palestine contributed to the gradual Arabisation of the country as parts of it were transformed into Arab statelets under the influence of the Byzantine court.

This protracted process, which began hundreds of years before the rise of Islam, contributed to the spectacular rise of Islam in the early 7th century. The process began when Arabs started migrating as individuals and communities in different waves from the Arabian Peninsula to the Levant region, Palestine included. These waves of migration continued and increased after the triumph of Christianity in the 4th century AD when the new religion was officially embraced by the Roman Empire.

The integration of the Ghassanid Arab migrant communities into Palestinian society in general and the Palestine Church in particular was much in evidence. In the Ecclesiastical History of the 5th century AD the bishop of Gaza, Sozomen, who was born in present-day Beit Lahia in the Gaza Strip and who was involved in the introduction of Christianity among the ‘Saracens’ (Arabs), refers to the Ishmaelites (Ghassanid Arabs) in Palestine, who were coming into contact not only with Christians but also with Jews and learning from them about their common descent from Abraham (Hawting 2004: 38).

The history of the birth of Christianity in Palestine and its massive spread in Late Antiquity has been written largely by Western academics either from the perspective of Empire or with the elite Christian (Byzantine)

Hellenistic settings in mind. The official narratives of the ‘beginnings’ of Christianity in Palestine and its doctrinal orthodoxy were all established in the 4th‒6th centuries and these narratives have been maintained to this day by the establishments of the Catholic and Greek Orthodox churches.

Very rarely was an account of early Christianity and Palestine written from the perspective of the local Aramaic-speaking Christian Arabs or the anti-Chalcedon Christian Monophysite Ghassanid Christian Arabs of greater Palestine. Yet early Christianity was extremely diverse. The Arabicand Aramaic-speaking Christian Monophysites and Miaphysites of the ‘Three Palestines’ and the powerful Arab Christian Ghassanid tribal rulers, bishops and poets of Palaestina Secunda, Palaestina Salutaris and Palaestina Prima are a case in point.

In the 4th‒6th centuries the three provinces of Palestine went through a gradual process of Arabisation and large parts of them were effectively transformed into Arab vassal states under imperial Byzantine influence.

Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia all acquired Ghassanid Arab Christian kings. This process of gradual Arabisation of parts of Palestine began in the 3rd‒4th centuries with the spread of Christianity throughout the Near East and the gradual conversion of many Arabs to Christianity.

Christian Arab communities existed in the ‘Three Palestines’ throughout the 3rd‒6th centuries (Shahid 1989). The Ghassanid Arabs (Arabic: al- Ghasasinah) were the biggest Arab group in Palestine. They migrated in different waves in the early 3rd century from the Arabian Peninsula to Palestine and the southern Levant region (Bowersock et al. 1999). The presence of the Ghassanids in what became officially known as Palaestina Salutaris in the 4th century dates back to the 3rd century. The Arabicspeaking Ghassanids converted to Monophysite Christianity before and after their migration to Palaestina Tertia and frequently merged with the Greek-speaking Christian communities of the region. Many of them, adhering to austere Monophysism, were initially hostile to the dominant Nicene Creed (‘two natures’ of Jesus) and official/elite Chalcedon doctrine of the Orthodox Church. While some Ghassanids converted to Islam from the mid-7th century onwards, the majority remained Christian and joined Melkite and Syriac Monophysite communities of the Levant and greater Palestine. After settling in Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda, the Ghassanids created client (buffer) states to the eastern Roman (later Byzantine) Empire and fought alongside the Byzantines against the Persian Sassanids and Arab Lakhmid tribes of southern Iraq. Both the Romans and Byzantines found a powerful ally in the Ghassanid Arabs, who acted as a buffer zone and a source of troops for the Byzantine army and controlled parts of Palaestina Salutaris and Palaestina Secunda.

However, from the 4th to the early 7th centuries, the Byzantine Empire constructed a patron‒client system and the title phylarch (φύλαρχος:

phylarchus) was granted to important Byzantine Arab allied rulers. In Greek the terms φυλή and φῦλον meant tribe, clan or race. The Byzantine title phylarch (from phylé and phylon and archein, ‘to rule’) meant ‘ruler of a large clan or tribe’. This political title was given to the leading princes of the Ghassanids and other Byzantine Arab allies. Many Arab tribes led by phylarchs had been encouraged to settle as foederati in the ‘Three Palestines’. When discussing the Ghassanid Arab communities of Palestine, historian Prokopios of Caesarea uses the expression Sarakēnós and distinguishes between the ‘Saracens in Palestine’ and territories ‘immediately beyond the boundaries of Palestine held by Saracens’ (Prokopios 2005). He also defines phylarch as ‘any leader of the Saracens federated by treaty to the Romans’ (Peters 1994: 61). Originally the foederati (sing.

foederatus) had been Arab allies identified as one of the groups or nations bound by treaty (foedus); they were neither Roman colonies nor beneficiaries of Roman citizenship (civitas), but they had been allowed and even encouraged to settle on Roman territory. They were also obliged to provide a contingent of military men when trouble arose. From 530 to 585, the individual Arab phylarchs were subordinated to a supreme Ghassanid phylarch (‘phylarch of phylarchs’) or king (Kazhdan 1991). These supreme phylarchs were appointed as Arab kings of the ‘Three Palestines’ directly by the Byzantine Emperors of Constantinople (who were ‘King of Kings’)

in the ‘Three Palestines’: Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia. The dramatic rise of the Ghassanid princes to Arab kings in the ‘Three Palestines’ reveals an important development in Palestine and the emergence of the Arabs as key players in the politics of pre-Islamic Palestine. These Ghassanid kings were later to play a major role not only in the Byzantine‒Persian Wars but also in the affairs of the Eastern Syriac Monophysite Church.

The first appearance of the Ghassanid kings in connection with greater Palestine is found in a tomb inscription written in Arabic in Nabataean script dating to the 4th century AD. Nabataean Aramaic and Nabataean Arabic had been spoken for several centuries before Islam (Fiema et al.

2015: 396‒497). The tomb inscription refers to the Ghassanid King Imru al-Qais, ‘king of all the Arabs’, who died in Byzantine service in 328 (Sartre 2005: 519). Known in Greek sources as Amorkesos (Αμορκέσος), Imru al-Qais signed a treaty with the Byzantine Empire acknowledging his status as foederati and as controlling major parts of Provincia Palaestina.

Amorkesos was appointed by the Byzantine Emperor as supreme phylarch of what became known as Palaestina Salutaris and included the Nabataean region and the former Roman Provincia Arabia. Indeed, the lure of greater Palestine for the Ghassanid Arabs is illustrated by the military and political career of Amorkesos and his rise to power in Palestine. This success followed his military achievements and his establishment of a power base in Arabia, and led to his eventual appointment as the Arab king of the region of Palaestina Tertia. Amorkesos had defected from the military service of Sassanid Persia and entered the political service of the Byzantine Empire. Following a visit to Constantinople and royal treatment by Emperor Leo I (Emperor from 457 to 474 AD), Imru al-Qais returned to Palestine having concluded a foedus with the Emperor, which endowed him with the overall phylarchate of Palaestina Tertia (Shahid 1989, 2006a:

61‒81). Amorkesos preferred to serve in Palestine, eventually becoming king (supreme phylarch) of Palaestina Tertia, rather than be a king in the Arabian Peninsula. All these Ghassanid Arab leaders not only flourished and exercised considerable power under the Byzantines but also preferred the social and cultural environment of Palestine to their former situation in Arabia (Shahid 1989, 2006a: 61‒81).

The Byzantine imperial patron‒client system worked in both directions:

it cemented the Byzantine‒Ghassanid alliance and it was used by the Ghassanid Arab rulers to consolidate their domain in greater Palestine.

By the late 5th century the Ghassanid kings had dramatically risen to become the powerful supreme phylarchs of Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda, effectively transforming major parts of two Palestines into two Palestinian Arab vassal kingdoms. Nominally the two Palestines were still imperial provinces, but in reality, under Ghassanid military and political control, they functioned as client monarchical states, having and commanding their own Arab armies, enforcing law and order within their jurisdiction, raising revenue and taxes from the lucrative trade passing through their territories, providing protection to the holy places in Palestine and dispatching ambassadors to foreign countries.

Abu Karib ibn Jabalah (known in Greek as Abocharabus), the Ghassanid supreme phylarch, was made by Emperor Justinian the supreme phylarch of Palaestina Tertia (Shahid 1989: 69, 89; Martindale et al.

1992: 111‒112). Abu Karib had received the territories of Palaestina Tertia, including the Negev and parts of the northern Hijaz, from his father Jabalah IV (Gabalas in Greek sources) (Peters 1994: 62), who ruled in Palaestina Tertia from 512 to 529. In 529 AD, Abu Karib was endowed with the phylarchate of Palaestina Tertia by Justinian for the same reason that inspired the creation of the new province, Palaestina Tertia, in the fourth century’ (Shahid 2002: 303).

The Ghassanids reached their peak under Abu Karib’s brother, the Miaphysite al-Harith V ibn Jabalah (Flavios Arethas, Φλάβιος Ἀρέθας in Greek sources) (Shahid 1995, Vol. 1: 260, 294–297), who reigned from 528

to 569 AD as King of the Ghassanids, was made patrikios and vir gloriosissimus (‘most glorious’, ἐνδοξότατος) and supported the Byzantines against Sassanid Persia. Gradually, and under the impact of the dominant Nicaea/ Chalcedonian creed of greater Palestine, the Ghassanid kings had begun to shift in the early 6th century from austere Monophysitism to Miaphysitism, a doctrine that was perceived to be more amenable to the official creed. Harith V played a major role in the affairs of both Miaphysite and Monophysite churches in the Levant. In 529 AD al-Harith V was given by Emperor Justinian I the highest imperial title available to the senatorial aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century (Kazhdan 1991:

163). Al-Harith became King of the Ghassanids and supreme phylarch of Palaestina Secunda and Arabia Petraea around 528 after leading a successful military campaign against the Mundhir rulers and their Arab Persian allies in southern Iraq. In the words of historian Prokopios of Caesarea Maritima, in Palaestina Prima, a source hostile to the Ghassanid ruler, al-Harith was promoted by Justinian ‘to the dignity of a king’, becoming the overall commander of all the Byzantines’ Arab allies (foederati) in the East with the title patrikios (πατρίκιος καὶ φύλαρχος τῶν Σαρακηνῶν, ‘patrician and phylarch of the Saracnes’), although his actual area of political and military control may initially have been limited to parts of Palaestina Secunda and Arabia Petraea (Shahid 1995, Vol. 1: 84‒85, 95‒109, 225‒226, 260, 282‒288, 294‒297, 337; Martindale et al. 1992: 111‒113; Kazhdan 1991: 163; Greatrex and Lieu 2002: 88, 129‒130, 135‒136).

As supreme Arab king-phylarchs of Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia, al-Harith and Abu Karib were equal in status, each of them dispatched ambassadors of their own respective vassal states to the Ethiopian ruler of south Arabia, Abraha (Shahid 2009, Vol. 2, Part 2: 44). As the phylarch of Palaestina Tertia, Abu Karib became very famous and rose in stature to the point of becoming a participant in the dispatch of diplomatic representatives to other countries in the Middle East (Shahid 2006b: 90).

The Diocletiantic enlargement of Palaestina Tertia entailed the addition of the Negev and the part of the Provincia Arabia south of the Arnon River, including Petra. The enlargement thus made the phylarch of Palaestina Tertia, Abu Karib, responsible for more spice route ... Of all the exports of Arabia, the item most significant to the Christian Roman Empire was Frankincense. After first disdaining it as a symbol of pagan worship, the church finally accepted Frankincense in the late fourth century. Produced only in Hadramawt in South Arabia, it was brought to Byzantium by Arab merchants and taxed [in gold and silver] at the frontier by such Arab officials as Abu Karib.

(Shahid 2009a, Vol. 2, Part 2: 44, 49)

Saracens (Greek: Σαρακηνός, Sarakēnós; late Latin: Saracenus; possibly from Arabic: šarqiyyin, ‘easterners’) became in medieval and modern times a pejorative European term closely associated with Arabs and Muslims. This European negative connotation may be traced to Prokopios’ somewhat hostile accounts of the Arab foederati and Ghassanid Arabs and their ‘upstart’ foederati Arab kings of the ‘Three Palestines’.

Also, Prokopios’ term Sarakēnós may have been largely directed at the non-conformist Monophysite Christian Arabs of the ‘Three Palestines’.

Prokopios’ attitude also betrays class tensions between the metropolitan (Greek-speaking) elite of Palestine and the Arab/Sarakēnó (largely subaltern) communities of the ‘Three Palestines’, conflicts which have continued to plague the Palestine Orthodox Church in the modern era. Prokopios’ account also reveals the class-ridden, stratified society of Provincia Palaestina and the latent class tensions and prejudices that existed in the country. On the one hand, there were the Greek-speaking urban social elites and ecclesiastical (Chalcedon) hierarchy, and on the other, the Aramaic-speaking Palestinian peasantry, the Eastern Arabicspeaking Monophysite (anti-Chalcedonian) Syriac churches, and the Arab (‘Saracen’) tribes of greater Palestine.

However, with the elevation of al-Harith to king of the Ghassanid Christians in Palaestina II and Arabia Petraea many Arab tribes joined the phylarchate and he became a very popular character in pre-Islamic history, folktales and sagas. The Ghassanids retained their powerful positions as supreme phylarchs, or ‘kings’, in Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Salutaris until the Byzantine Empire was overthrown by the Muslim Arabs in the 7th century following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636.

In the ancient Middle East kings conducted autonomous foreign policies and dispatched ambassadors to neighbouring countries. Monumental epigraphic evidence from the Yemen shows that the Ghassanid Arab kings and phylarchs of Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda, Abu Karib and Arithas, pursued independent foreign policies towards Arabia (Shahid 2009, Vol. 2, Part 2: 44).

Byzantine military-strategic plans with regard to the ‘Three Palestines’ were centred on the army commanded by Dux Palaestinae, military commander of all Palestine, whose headquarters were in Caesarea-Palaestina, while relying heavily on Ghassanid federate forces which dominated Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia and formed a key pillar of the Byzantine frontier defence system. Arab federate troops were also involved in guarding the holy sites in Palestine and the pilgrims’ routes to and from the Holy Land. This provided the Ghassanid Arab federate kings of Palaestina Secunda and Palaestina Tertia huge military resources and strategic influence over the ‘Three Palestines’, an influence which lasted for nearly two centuries.

The Ghassanid Arabs played a key role in protecting the Holy Land from raids of the Arab Lakhmids of Iraq – the security of Palestine from such raids was crucial for the continuation of the pilgrimages on which the thriving economy depended. The religiously devout Ghassanid Arabs prospered in Palestine economically and flourished religiously and culturally, and they engaged in much religious and public building, as evidenced by a spread of urbanisation and the sponsorship of several churches and monasteries. They planted vineyards and other crops, raised livestock, mined the subterranean wealth of their territories for gold, silver and copper and cultivated horsemanship. Their Arab customs officers raised taxes from the lucrative regional and trans-continental trade passing through Palaestina Tertia and Palaestina Secunda. Their economic, social and cultural lives were closely connected to their devout Christianity and close involvement with the pilgrims to the Holy Land.

Their Christian Arab soldiers in Palestine provided security for Christian holy places in and Christian pilgrims to Palestine (Shahid 2009, Vol. 2, Part 2: 45, 49, 51):

More important than the Byzantine influence in their social life was their Christianity, which was required of them once they became Byzantine’s foederat. This factor revolutionized their social life.

The feasts of the Christian calendar and the liturgical year had distinct social aspects. As devout Christians, the Ghassanids scrupulously observed these feasts, which at the same time became social events; thus these celebrations became part of their cultural life … As foederati encamped in the Provincia Arabia, Palaestina Secunda, and Palaestina Tertia, they were physically very close to the Holy Land, some of whose loca sancta they could even see from their military stations. [Such places were especially visible from Palaestina Secunda, where Christ performed one of his miracles on the woman with the issue of the blood (Mark 5: 25‒34). From Jabiya (in the Golan Heights) and elsewhere the Ghassanids could see the Sea of Galilee, sites of the lakeside of the ministry of Christ, and Mount Tabor, the scene of the Transfiguration, as well as the Jordan, the river of baptism. A verse in one of the poems of their panegyrist al-Nabigha may suggest they even had a presence in northern Galilee].

In addition, they, together with the Byzantine regular troops, were the protectors of the Holy Land and its holy sites from the raids and incursions of the Lakhmids [of al-Hirah in Iraq] … This role gave their Christianity a military tone – they were literally milites Christi.

Just as they were the military protectors of the Holy Land, so too they were the ecclesiastical protectors of the Monophysite church in Oriens, which they had resuscitated around 540, and continued to defend and protect until their own existence as Byzantine phylarchate ended in 636, after the Battle of Yarmuk. (Shahid 2009, Vol. II, Part II: 63‒64)

In the 5th century, during the Byzantine period, the Golan Heights formed part of Palaestina Secunda and was populated by Christian Arab Ghassanids.

At the end of the 5th century AD, the Emperor Anastasius made use of the Ghassanids, Monophysite Christian Arabs, and they became the rulers of Palaestina Secunda.

Following the Battle of Yarmuk in 636 Islam not only conquered the Ghassanid phylarchates of Palestine, it also inherited the millet concept which was used for the autonomous communities of the churches of the East (including the Monophysite Ghassanid) in the Byzantine Empire in the 4th‒7th centuries. Even under the Ottomans the term Millet-i Rûm, the Greek Orthodox (Byzantine) millet, applied specifically to the Orthodox Christian communities of the Ottoman Empire. The head of a millet – most often a religious hierarch – was the Greek Orthodox Patriarch. It is not inconceivable that the Arab Islamic word millah may have evolved from the metaphorical expression milites Christi (soldier for Christ) ,whose beginnings were in early Christianity and the Ghassanid Arab Christian communities of former Provincia Arabia and Provincia Palaestina (Prima, Secunda and Tertia).