Heresies in the early Byzantine Empire: Imperial policies and the Arab conquest of the Near East

Abstract

On the eve of the Arab conquest, the eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire were riddled by numerous heresies which were considered by a number of modern scholars as disguised nationalistic movements expressed by the local peoples against the central authority of Constantinople. Our aim in the present article is to offer new evidences to demonstrate that those heretic movements contributed little to the easy Moslem conquest of the Near East. This conquest was due, in essence, to several military and social factors.