detail.
After this the Ishmaelites, Muḥammad and all his army, went forth to wage war against the Byzantines; they conquered the land and defeated the Byzantines and killed them as they fled before them. The imām120 in those days was ʿAqbūn ben Elʿazar, who lived in Bayt Ṣāma. When the Muslims attacked and the Byzantines fled, all of the Samaritans who lived along the coast fled with the Byzantines from the advancing Muslims, [thinking] that they would return. When the Samaritans began to leave with the Byzantines for Byzantium (Rūmīya), they came to the raʾīs ʿAqbūn ben Elʿazar, to Bayt Ṣāma, because he lived there, and said to him, “You are a trustworthy man, so we will deposit our possessions with you until we return,” thinking that they would be returning soon…. The people who deposited [their wealth] were the people of Caesarea, Arsūf, Maioumas, Jaffa, Lydda, Ascalon, Gaza, and all of the interior villages and those along the coast. And after this they left for Byzantium and remained there and have not returned to this day. The Muslims rose and entered the land of Canaan, and took control of it; they seized all the cities and inhabited them, and ruled over all the places until there was no place left which they had not taken over but Caesarea, which rebelled and did not submit to them because it was called the mother of cities and took precedence over them. [The Muslims] set up camp against it and besieged it for six years before they conquered it…. After they captured it, every place else stood in awe of them.121
As Levy-Rubin observes, this account has much to recommend it, and even at considerable historical distance from the events in question its verisimilitude is impressive.122 Excepting only the indication that Muhammad participated in the assault, which Levy-Rubin regards as an error adopted from the Syriac chronicle tradition,123 the details of this narrative comport well with the current understanding of how the conquest of Palestine unfolded. The Continuatio reports that while the Samaritans living on the coast felt threatened by the invaders and fled with the Byzantines, the inland areas were not as disrupted by the incursion: in fact, the region was sufficiently tranquil that the coastal Samaritans decided to entrust their belongings to the high priest living there. This description agrees with the apparent concentration of the Arab forces on the Byzantine cities along the coast, and the decision by many inhabitants to abandon their cities rather than offer resistance is consistent with the increasing recognition that the conquest of Palestine was largely a nondestructive affair.124 Both literary evidence and the archaeological record suggest a picture of the Arab takeover as a mostly peaceful transition: numerous recent excavations have revealed “no sign of any traumatic break or crisis in the seventh century” that would indicate a pitched struggle for control of the region.125 Moreover, the Continuatio’s indication that Caesarea in particular offered fierce resistance to the invaders is also confirmed by other sources, which describe the city’s capture only after a long and arduous siege, as reflected in the text.126
More importantly, as Levy-Rubin notes, the author of this account “seems to have been familiar with the layout of the Byzantine city [that is, Caesarea], and was well informed about the story of its conquest.”127 Such knowledge of the city’s plan as it existed during the Byzantine period is an impressive indication that this account was likely written by someone very close to the events described, perhaps with firsthand knowledge of what he relates.128 This determination comports with the broader character of the Continuatio, whose reports generally exhibit “close proximity, both in time and place, to the events described in the text,” often seeming to relate accounts provided by firsthand witnesses.129 Although it is not known when or by whom this chronicle was first stitched together, its individual reports, as Edward Vilmar was the first to observe, appear to be contemporary with the events that they describe.130 Comparison with the Islamic historical tradition reveals the Continuatio to be a reliable source in general, but with regard to events and activities in early Islamic Palestine, this Samaritan chronicle offers a unique source of particularly “detailed and trustworthy information.”131
In view of the Continuatio’s overall quality as a historical source, and the general credibility of its description of the conquest of Palestine more specifically, one should perhaps reconsider Levy-Rubin’s somewhat hasty dismissal of its report concerning Muhammad’s involvement in the initial invasion. Levy-Rubin rejects this notice simply out of hand, on the basis that it contradicts the Islamic historical tradition, which consistently reports Muhammad’s death prior to the assault on Palestine. Inasmuch as the Samaritans used a dialect of Aramaic as their primary language during the early Middle Ages, she proposes that this “mistake” owes itself to Samaritan knowledge of the Syriac historical tradition. Yet she does not elsewhere show evidence of influence from the Syriac tradition, nor does the Continuatio manifest any significant dependence on Christian historiography. Quite to the contrary, Levy-Rubin frequently appeals to the Continuatio’s independence and the uniqueness of its witness as evidence of its exceptional importance. To be sure, the Continuatio knows the same tradition regarding Muhammad’s participation in the invasion of Palestine that is reflected in the Christian sources and the Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai complex. Nevertheless, there is no evidence to suggest that the Continuatio’s knowledge of this tradition is contingent on any of these other texts. Instead, the Continuatio seems to be an independent witness to this early tradition, which appears to have circulated among the different religious communities of early Islamic Palestine and the Near East more generally. Such an assessment fits well with the detailed and local character of the Continuatio’s report, and the apparent credibility of this account of the Palestinian conquest on other points invites some confidence in its notice of Muhammad’s involvement. If this remark were merely the isolated witness of an anonymous Samaritan chronicle, it would rightly be disregarded. But when placed in the context of these other sources, it seems that the Continuatio confirms their collective witness, and together with the apocalypse of Rabbi Shimʿōn b. Yoḥai, it offers important evidence that this tradition was not simply a collective delusion of Christian historiography.
The Continuatio’s account of the Arab conquest is surprisingly free from polemic, and it does not interpret either the Muslim invasion or Muhammad’s participation in it according to some apologetic interest or a totalizing narrative. On the whole, the Continuatio is quite favorable to the Arabs, and as Levy-Rubin observes, it exhibits a “positive evaluation concerning both conditions in Palestine during the Umayyad period and the positive attitude of these rulers towards the local population.”132 The Arab expulsion of the Byzantines is described with approval, and the terms of Islamic governance are met with neutral acceptance. Of Muhammad, the Continuatio says, rather astonishingly, that “the prophet of Islam did not cause anyone distress throughout his life. He would present his belief before the people, accepting anyone who came to him, [yet] not compelling one who did not.” His immediate successors, the chronicle continues, ruled “according to what he had enjoined upon them; they did no more or less, and did not harm anyone.”133 It is a portrait of Islam’s emergence within Palestine that comports rather well, as Levy-Rubin notes, with what can otherwise be known about this period.134 Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that such a favorable account would have been composed much beyond the first several decades of Islamic rule, after which social and economic pressure on the dhimmis (that is, non-Muslim peoples) was increased. Consequently, when all the relevant factors are taken into consideration, this view of the early Islamic conquests from Samaria has much to recommend it, and its notice of Muhammad’s involvement during the invasion warrants its inclusion alongside these other early witnesses to this tradition.
An Early Islamic Witness: ʿUmar’s Letter to Leo (Eighth Century)
Important confirmation of this tradition of Muhammad’s leadership during the invasion of the Near East emerges from a recently rediscovered early Islamic text, the alleged letter from the caliph ʿUmar II (717–20) to the Byzantine emperor Leo III (717–41). This letter was already known, albeit somewhat indirectly, from a précis of ʿUmar’s correspondence composed by the Armenian chronicler Łewond in his eighth-century History.135 Other historical sources, including
