eRR! STIAN Sthe monastery called "The Daughters of Five Churches" at Ra's 'Ayn.^177
Because of the large number of pastoral Arabs converted by Mono-
physites, it is natural to suppose that the Monophysites in Iraq were
particularly hurt by the conquest. The fate of Christian Arabs of the
tribes of Bakr, 'Iil, Taghlib, Namir, Tanukh, and Iyiid, who suffered
death or enslavement or converted to Islam and went over to the
Muslim side during the conquest, would support the conclusion that
the number of Monophysites in Iraq declined radically as a direct
result of the conquest. But there was still a Jacobite bishop of the
Arabs, John (d. 649-50), after the conquest.^178 Conversion seems to
have taken about a generation to be effective, and as late as 660 Arab
Christians of the tribe of 'Iil were living in the quarter of the Bakr
ibn Wii'il in KufaY9 The see of George, Bishop of the Arabs (686-
724), included the Arabs of 'Aqola (Kufa), and the tribes of Taghlib,
Tanukh, Tayyi', and Tha'laba.^180 Otherwise, Jacobites continued to
be strong after the conquest in Beth 'Arbhaye, Beth Nuhadhra, Adi-
abene, at Siniar, at Takrit, and among the Kurds.^181 yol).annan Bar
Penkaye felt that the Monophysites had profited from the Muslim
conquest, mainly in the West, by becoming free to make converts.^182
In fact, the conflict between Nestorians and Monophysites carried
over into the Islamic period. IshO'yahbh III is said to have bribed the
Islamic government in order to prevent the Jacobites from building a
church of their own in Mawsil.183 It was only in 767, after the advent
of the 'Abbiisl dynasty, that the Nestorians were able to build their
first church in Takrit, and the same year the Jacobites were allowed
to reoccupy the church of Mar Domitius at Nasibin.^184 Still, both sects
tended to keep apart once the division was created. Villages were
usually entirely Nestorian or entirely Jacobite with occasionally a Ma-
gian, Jewish, or pagan family. Where a "heretic" was present in an
"orthodox" community, it was usually a case similar to that of the
Jacobite stylite who occupied a pillar-shaped limestone tower in a
177 A. Barsaum, Chronieon Anonymum ad annum 819 pertinens, CSCO, Ser. Syri 36
(Louvain, 1920),245; tc.]. B. Chabot, CSCO, SCT. Syri 56 (Louvain, 1937), 192.
178 Chabot, Chronique, p. 7.
179 Tabari, Ta'r"ikh, I, 3460.
180 Nau, "Agoudemmeh," p. 28; W. Wright, A Short History of Syriac Literature
(London, 1894), pp. 156-57. One of his contemporaries was Daniel, the Arab priest
of the tribe of Tayyi' (ibid., p. 159).
181 Mas'iidi, Muruj, II, 50, 251.
182 Mingana, Sources syriaques, pp. 175-76.
183 Bar Hebraeus, Chronicon Ecclesiasticum (Paris and Louvain, 1877), Ill, 127.
184 Wright, History, pp. 189-90.