“What initial impression did the Arab conquest and Islam make upon seventh-century Byzantine contemporaries?  The seventh-century Byzantine sources on Byzantine reactions to the Arab conquest are scarce, inconveniently located, and insufficiently studied” (p. 139).  So begins this article by Kaegi, who considers a sermon of Sophronius of Jerusalem and the Doctrina Jacobi as contemporary records of the situation.  Sophronius felt “this extraordinary Arab invasion was a divinely sent punishment for Christian sins” (p.139).  The Doctrina Jacobi likens the Roman Empire to Daniel’s fourth beast, and according to the author, “is the earliest Byzantine literary text which refers to Muhammad and his religious message (although it is true that it does not mention him by name)” (p. 142).

Other sources cited in the article include Maximus the Confessor, St. Anastasius the Sinaite, the Pseudo-Metbodius apocalypse, and the Armenian historian Sebeos, all of whom drew similar conclusions concerning the conquest – that God allowed it because of His disdain for Christian sin (for example the sins of the Emperor Constans II or the sexual license of the Romans), not because of favor towards Islam.  The article mentions that not only religious gloom was cast on the events of the Arab conquest, but also religious hope.  “The author of the Pseudo-Methodius apocalypse … by no means was wholly pessimistic about the future.  He remained a loyal Byzantine Christian and confidently predicted and joyously looked forward to, the ultimate triumph of the Byzantine Emperor and the eradication of the Arabs and Islam” (p. 145).

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