The Hijazi Arabs invasion of the Middle East

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jul 17, 2014 at 07:58

Our dear Sus does not seem to be aware that there were Arab tribes in the Levant and Mesopotamia prior to the Arab invasion of the Middle East in 633CE and they were Christian and they spoke Aramaic as well as some form of Arabic which was a hybrid of Arabic and Aramaic and they wrote their documents by using the Syriac script (Garshouni which is really Arabic written by using the Syriac alphabet) they also used Syriac and yes there are very few Arabic texts that predate Islam. These Arab tribes were forced to convert to islam not right away but some 200 years after the Arab invasion (and why not right away? the answer here is because islam did not exist this early on) and once this took place their link to Aramaic was lost and this is indeed why the Ulama had no clue about the Aramaic in the Qur'an or what it means

To the historian the answer is obvious. A small contingent of Arabs from Arabia did indeed conquer the country in the seventh century.

This is very true because the importation of Hijazi Arabs to places like Egypt and the Levant was very limited

But as a result of factors which were briefly outlined in the first chapter of this book, the Palestinian population soon became Arabized under Arab domination,

Well then Rodison is saying that indeed the invading Arabs forced the real inhabitants to abandon their languegs be it Aramaic or Hebrew or Armenian and become Arabic speakers but we know that a language is very central to a culture which means that the invading Arabs destroyed the native culture and they also forced the local population to convert to Islam

just as earlier it had been Hebraicized, Aramaicized, to some degree

But the Jews and those that spoke Aramaic never forced others to speak their languages and never forced others to convert to Christianity or Judiasm

even Hellenized.

Again he is wrong. Hellenism was unique because it was really a phenomenon of the cities and not of the country side and if let us say an Egyptian wanted to be Hellenized he moved to Alexandria and this is why in the case of Egypt the language of Egypt did not die because no one was forced to speak Greek or to become Greek

Hellenism was a cultural phenomenon that was transmitted in Greek and no was forced to join

He is very wrong

Now compare this with the Arabs and their imperialism where the native population was forced to adopt the Arabic language instead of their native language and many converted to Islam in-order to avoid the Jizya and Kharaj tax which ruined the economy of Egypt within 100 years after the Arab invasion in 642CE

Rodison is wrong again

Now compare this with Persia where the people of Iran were dragged in Islam and many of them had no like for the Arabs or their imperialism and they regared their culture as far superior to the culture of the Arabs but in typical Persian way "If you cannot beat them then join them" and this is indeed what happened as Iranians created what Islam is all about (70% of the books of early Islam were written by Persians the likes of al-Tabari and Ibn Saad and not by Arabs) but what saved the poeple of Iran and the culture of Iran and the language of Iran from the Arabs and their cultural imperialism must have been Fardawsi and his Shahnamah and the power or nationalism and secular culture

Compare this with Egypt which is the only other nation state in the Middle East and if the Copts had similar secular literature the likes of the Shahnamah Egyptians would been speaking their native language today and not Arabic. Egypt to this day and if we believe what Gason Weits claim that 92% of Egyptians have their roots in Egypt and have nothing to do with the Hijaz

It became Arab in a way that it was never to become Latinized

Not really even the Qur'an has loan words from Latin via Syriac the likes of al-Sarat in Surat al-Fatiha and the archeticture made it to Arabic archeticture and Roman Law made it to Islamic law

I'm shocked that a great historian like him still believe in the bogus claim by the Arabs of al-Jahiliyya when in actual fact there is no historical discontinuity

or Ottomanized.

The Arabs never liked the Turks and yes they are Muslims but they did not speak the language of Allah which is the language of the Arabs but the Turks also left their marks in the spoken Arabic of today which has many loan words from Turkish as well as the so called Arabic cuisine has much in it that is Turkish

The invaded melted with the invaders.

Well he is wrong again because you would expect that the barbarian or invader will melt away and become part of the civilized in other words the invading Arabs should have been Aramaic speakers in Palestine and Coptic speakers in Egypt and they would have converted to Christianity but the opposite happened and why is that? The only explanation is that at the time of the Arab invasion the civilized Middle East was in the process of change that we still do not understand and the invading Arabs (the polity) came upon a new religion (Islam) that was being formed not in Arabia but in the civilized Middle East and the Arabs had to look back and find a prophet and a cultic center and it was all made up later on after all how can you explain the fact that you will not find the name of Muhammad in the very early Arabic language extant sources

Most damaging to the early Arab historians is that we are told that 4000 Arabs invaded Egypt and the real question is how can 4000 looters invaded and conquer a country of 7 millions with a very powerful army unless the Arabs by accident were the catalyst for such change and how could 4000 ignorant nomads from Arabic change a very profound old civilization the likes of Egypt

There is never simple answers in history and beware of historians that provide simple answers

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