294. Gaza & The Islamic Conquest (Part 4)

Hello and welcome to Empire with me, Anita Arnand. And me, William Durrenpore. And we are joined again, I'm very happy to say, by the Professor of late antique, medieval and byzantine studies at the University of Cambridge, Peter Saris. Welcome Peter.

In the last episode, we talked about Christianity and the impact of Christianity and these sort of wild monks who really changed the fabric of what Gaza looks like. Sort of this boom time with monasteries and churches springing up in the Holy Land. In this episode we're going to talk about the great conquests of Islam because you know William left us on a on a cliffhanger at the last episode in the seventh century and how ideas about this period have by modern study been completely overturned in some way. So I mean let's start at the very, very basic level.

We're talking about a rapid expansion of Islam at this time. We're talking sort of 630s, aren't we? So just tell us what's going on and what what is what is happening here. Over the course of the 6th and early 7th centuries, cultural, economic, military, religious conditions in the Arabian Peninsula had been revolutionized and transformed by the growing involvement in Arabia of the two great powers of the Eastern Roman Empire and Sasanian Persia. Partly as a result of this growing superpower involvement, you'll see new religious ideas come into circulation in Arabia, new forms of identity emerging.

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