RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESophysite Arabs were killed, enslaved, or converted to Islam. The sur-
render of the citadel of Takrit to the Muslims in 637 was only an ad
hoc arrangement by Miiriithii, preserved only the people and churches
of Takrit, and did not include the rest of the Monophysite community
in Iraq.
On the Nestorian side, Mar Ammeh's collaboration with the Mus-
lims at Nineveh at the time of the conquest was similar. Since he was
not even catholicos at the time, whatever advantage he gained for
himself by collaboration did not extend to the rest of the Nestorian
community. In practice, the Muslims made no distinction among the
members of other religions at first. The adherents of all of the religions
present in Iraq were treated merely as subjects liable to the tribute
tax. This was especially true in mixed cities such as Hira or Mada'in,
where the tribute was imposed on the entire population without regard
for religious differences. Consequently, at first, there was no inter-
vention by the Muslim government in the internal affairs of the reli-
gious communities they found in Iraq and this, in itself, tended to
favor the operation and further development of autonomous systems
of law, at least among Jews and Nestorians.
. This lack of interest and intervention allowed the Nestorian and
Monophysite institutions to survive in Iraq after the temporary dis-
ruptions of the conquest. The ecclesiastical structure, schools, churches,
and monasteries of both communities continued to exist in early Is-
lamic Iraq as direct survivals from the Sas ani an period. The Mono-
physite organization even survived among Arab bedouin in Iraq. Es-
sentially, the momentum created by both groups simply extended into
the Islamic period with the continued building of new monasteries
and the continued conversion of Magians and pagans. Nestorian canon
law merely continued its pre-Islamic development. The problem of
communal as opposed to private property continued to plague the
church. Priests continued to serve as ecclesiastical judges. Lay notables
continued to be involved in the election of the clergy, as under the
Sasanians. Even the hostilities generated in the late Sasanian period
survived the conquest. If anything, the conflict between Nestorians
and Monophysites tended to produce more rigid distinctions between
them than before. The factions in the Nestorian Church survived be-
cause they had been institutionalized and continued to operate in the
Islamic period partly because the institutions themselves survived.
In fact, the reestablishment of the conditions of the late Sasanian
period with regard to church-state relations was due more to the