A CHANGED WORLDChristian religious divisions and religious reactionsThe ordinations of Miaphysite clergy under Justinian had had the effect of
creating a divided church and of giving the Miaphysites an established posi-
tion. But as we have seen already, the east was not uniformly Miaphysite, even
in strongly Miaphysite areas; the patriarchate of Antioch, for instance, passed
several times between Chalcedonian and Miaphysite control, and there were
both Miaphysite and orthodox communities in Edessa when Heraclius was
there during his campaign. It has often been supposed, nevertheless, that the
religious divisions among Christians aided the Arab conquests by reducing loy-
alty to Constantinople among the anti-Chalcedonians, and diverting attention
from the need for defence, a theory for which there is little direct evidence.^37
If cities surrendered without fighting, it was because they had little choice, not
because they preferred the Arabs to the Byzantines; they had faced very simi-
lar choices before – for instance, during the Persian wars of Chosroes I under
Justinian – and behaved in similar ways when the alternative would have been a
disastrous siege or violent capture. There was no shortage of military response
in any case, and this was not in the hands of local clergy or local communities.
It may be true that the Arab armies were motivated by a religious theory of
the rewards of jihad, but Heraclius’ wars were also seen by contemporaries as
religious wars, and troops were spurred on by the use of Christian relics and
images. The early Muslims were deeply divided themselves; the beginnings
of Muslim rule outside Arabia were marked first by the ridda wars, or ‘wars
of apostasy’ against the rule of Abu Bakr after Muhammad’s death, then the
murder of the Caliph ‘Uthman in 656 and the coming to power of Mu‘awiya in
Figure 9.1 The Great Mosque at Damascus (early eighth century), built on the site of a Chris-
tian church and Roman temple