The relationship of the Byzantine Empire with the Arab population of Syria was federal in character (Shahid 1989, 1995). Major tribes located along the settled regions of Syria-Palestine such as Salih, Tanukh, and Ghassan were allowed, even encouraged, to establish state-like entities whose function would be to police the semi-nomadic regions and to punish tribes in the deep desert whose raids could not be controlled. In addition, each of these federate tribes undertook to protect Syria-Palestine from the primary enemy: Sasanian Persia and its federate state, the Lakhmids (based in southern Iraq). Occasionally, the federate tribes were also allowed police functions within the territory of the empire, such as the suppression of the Samaritan revolt in ad 529.
There were tensions, however, between the Byzantines and their federates, especially the Ghassanids, whose capital south of Damascus was a major cultural center for northern Arabs. The primary tensions stemmed from the fact that the Ghassanids were strongly miaphysite (whereas the Byzantine emperors espoused orthodoxy). This sectarian adherence put the Ghassanid dynasty not only at odds with the distant capital of Constantinople, but more immediately with the strongly orthodox region of southern Palestine (centered on Jerusalem), which bordered their territory to the south.
But this tension, although occasionally leading to the Byzantines removing or exiling various Ghassanids rulers, was not such that the Ghassanids were actually moved to revolt or betray the trust placed in them. On the contrary, the Ghassanids fought on the side of the Byzantines very successfully against their perennial rivals in Iraq, the Lakhmids, despite the fact that the latter were also miaphysite (as well as a substantial percentage of the Christians in the Sasanian Empire), and are not known to have harbored traitorous leanings (Shahid 1995: 439-40). During the Persian invasion of Syria and occupation (ad 612-28), the Ghassanids fought on the side of the Byzantines, and there exists circumstantial evidence that the Byzantines tried to reinstate them as federates during the brief period of Byzantine control (ad 628-36), after the Persians were defeated. In general, the federate relationship between the Arabs of Syria and the Byzantines was one of mutual benefit.
Not only that: there were positive social relations on the common level between Arabs and the many monks and anchorites in the region of Syria-Palestine. The Muslim literature, especially the ascetic literature that flourished during the eighth and ninth centuries, is replete with anecdotes that remind us of this positive reality:
A [Arab] man passed by a monk and said: O monk, how [often] do you remember death?
He said: I never lift my foot or put the other [down] without remembering that I am [as good as] dead. He said: And how is your [spiritual] striving? He said: I have never heard of anyone who has heard of paradise or hell without praying every hour. The man said: I pray and weep until my tears cause vegetables to grow. The monk said: If you laugh and confess your sins to God, you are better than if you weep while you are straying in your actions. Prayer of the erring [man] does not rise above him. The man said: Teach me. The monk said: You must practice asceticism in the world, and do not let its people influence you. (Ibn Abi Shayba 1979: 13. 491-2)
This type of anecdote could be multiplied hundreds of times. The monks lived close to the nomads and semi-nomads (as they continue to do today - for example, in the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mt. Sinai): the relationship was symbiotic and to the benefit of both sides.
World History
