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.

Algunos estudiosos modernos han considerado que las numerosas herejías que invadieron las provincias orientales del Imperio bizantino, al comienzo de la conquista islámica, fueron movimientos nacionalistas encubiertos generados por los nativos contra la autoridad bizantina. Nuestro propósito en el presente artículo es ofrecer nuevas evidencias que demuestren que dichos movimientos heréticos contribuyeron en escasa medida a la de por sí fácil conquista islámica de Oriente Medio, que se debió, esencialmente, a factores militares y sociales de diversa índole.