Forced Conversion of Jews

It's an old article in the Jewish Political Studies Review, but considering how ignorant most of us are about the Byzantine Empire and the late classical/early dark ages, pertinent. "In the seventh century, the Arabs embarked on the conquest of the world in the name of Islam," Rivkah Duker Fishman writes. "The Caliphate replaced the Persian Empire and Christian Spain and conquered much of the Byzantine Empire. The latter, however, seemed to ignore the threat of the new invaders and their religion. Instead, the Byzantine political and intellectual elite focused increasingly on the Jews in tracts and legal measures."

On 31 May 632, apparently under the influence of these churchmen, Emperor Heraclius took the unprecedented step of issuing a decree of forced conversion of his Jewish subjects to Christianity. This edict encompassed the areas of Asia Minor (now Turkey), Syria, Palestine, Greece, Egypt, and the Balkans. Although it was not implemented, the decree alienated the Jews, many of whom had allied themselves with the Persians earlier in the century. Longstanding discriminatory policies and laws influenced Samaritans and non-Orthodox Christians, along with Jews, in favor of the Arab invaders.

According to leading Byzantinist Averil Cameron, the reasons for the anti-Jewish bellicosity during the seventh century were cumulative: long-term stigma resulting from the church fathers' writings, the intense anti-Jewish and anti-heretical activities and legislation of the Emperor Justinian in the mid-sixth century, the fact that Jews were considered supporters of certain factions or contenders for the throne in the late sixth century, and the Jews' reputation as sympathizers of the Persians.

Other scholars believe that Jews mainly served as a surrogate or a literary and artistic construct in place of the Muslims whose power Christianity could not break.

Persia also fell to the Arab/Islamic invaders in the seventh century. And yet, if you were to ask most people what happened in the seventh century how many of us would be able to say that it was a cataclysmic time, and explain why?