A number of scholars have examined mechanisms of Byzantines’ policy to integrate foreign elements. R. Lopez argued that a foreigner, whatever his origin, could become a real citizen if he has his home within the Empire, intermarry with citizens, and accept the Byzantine way of life (R. Lopez, Foreigners in Byzantium, Bulletin de l’institut historique belge de Rome 44 (1974), 341-352, esp. 342-343. In a different context, A. Kαldellis (Ethnography after Antiquity: Foreign Lands and Peoples in Byzantine Literature, Philadelphia 2013, 126-127). D. Nicol studied the case of the integration of some Latin elements during the 11th to 13th centuries and concluded that the full integration could have been achieved only with three conditions: conversion to Orthodoxy, adoption of Greek, and intermarriage with Byzantine families (D. M. Nicol, Symbiosis and Integration: Some Greco-Latin Families in Byzantium in 11th to 13th Centuries, BF 7 (1979), 113-135, esp. 118-119). Y. Rotman has adopted the same approach when dealing with the absorption of Arab captives in Byzantium. As he points out, “ ceux-ci ont la possibilité d’être affranchis s’ils sont prêts à se convertir, à épouser des femmes byzantines et à s’installer dans les territoires byzantins. Les trois actes, la conversion au christianisme, le mariage et la libération, transforment les captifs arabes en sujets byzantins” (Y. Rotman, Byzance face à l’Islam arabe, VIIe-Xe siècle. D’un droit territorial à l’identité par la foi, Annales HSS, juillet-août 4 (2005), 767-788, esp. 778. See also Ramaḍān, Treatment, 179f). From his side, Ch. Brand also demonstrated the possibility of applying this model of integration to some Turkish elements during the 11th and 12th centuries.
More importantly, he revealed the possibility of finding evidence related to other Muslim minorities, rather than captives and merchants, able to integrate into the social structure of Byzantium, having converted to Christianity and formed mixed families that had achieved tangible success in the service of the empire (Ch. M. Brand, The Turkish Element in Byzantium, Eleventh-Twelfth Century, DOP 43 (1989), 1-25).
J. Hussey has pointed out, Byzantines could not have predicted the success of an explicit Christianization policy toward Muslims, as in other regions, and thus they sought to achieve individual and group conversions based on utilitarianism (J. M. Hussey, The Orthodox Church in the Byzantine Empire, Oxford 1990, 114). Hussey also emphasizes that “In general, the failure of the Orthodox Church to make genuine conversions on any large scale among Muslims was a feature of Byzantine history (in contrast to its success with the South Slavs and Russia)” (page 13).
The conversion from Islam to Christianity within Muslim territories and the punishments involved are one of the most common topics in modern studies (U. Simonsohn, Conversion, Apostasy, and Penance: The Shifting Identities of Muslim Converts in the Early Islamic Period, in: A. Papaconstantinou – N. Mclynn – D. L. Schwartz (eds.), Conversion in Late Antiquity: Christianity, Islam and Beyond, Farnham 2015, 197- 217. On the Christian legend of the Caliph al-Ma’mūn’s apostasy see M. N. Swanson, The Christian al- Ma’mūn Tradition, in: D. Thomas (ed.), Christians at the Heart of Islamic Rule: Church Life and Scholarship in ‘Abbasid Iraq, Leiden 2003, 63-92. On the legend of apostasy and martyrdom of the caliph’s cousin, Pachomios, in the first half of the 8th century, see D. J. Sahas, What an infidel saw that a faithful did not: Gregory Dekapolites (d. 842) and Islam, GOTR 31 (1986), 47-67).
The phenomenon of Turks’ apostasy and defection to Byzantium from the 12th century onwards. The phenomenon of the Turks’ apostasy is a subject of many studies. A. D. Beihammer [Defection across the Border of Islam and Christianity: Apostasy and CrossCultural Interaction in Byzantine-Seljuk Relations, Speculum 86/3 (2011), 597-651], provides a survey of cases of Byzantine-Seljuk apostasy during 12th and 13th centuries. See also R. Shukurov, The Byzantine Turks 1204-1461, Leiden 2016, 179, 226-231; A. D. Beihammer, Byzantium and the Emergence of Muslim-Turkish Anatolia, ca.1040-1130, London, New York, 2017, 170, 172, 313-315, 339; A. Jovanovic, Imagining the Communities of Others: The Case of the Seljuk Turks, ByzSym 28 (2018), 239-273, esp.268-269; Brand, Turkish Element, 12, 16, 17.
Residents of borderlands
Curta’s approach seems an appropriate embodiment of the trend adopted by recent studies dealing with Byzantine-Islamic borders. As these studies have shown, despite the military nature of the borderlands, its cities in times of peace served as a local market and trade centers. The long-term persistence of these borders has imposed a state of peaceful coexistence between their people on the economic and social levels and created, according to A. Papaconstantinou, a specific ‘frontier culture’ (A. Papaconstantinou [Confrontation, Interaction, and the Formation of the Early Islamic Oikoumene, REB 63(2005), 167-181, esp. 171-172] criticizes the perception of M. Bonner (ed.), Arab-Byzantine Relations in Early Islamic Times, Aldershot 2005, xxvii). As J. Haldon and H. Kennedy have pointed out, these regions were very different from those behind, for, on their soil, distinct cultural and social and economic characteristics grew (J. F. Haldon – H. Kennedy, The Arab-Byzantine Frontier in the 8th and 10th Centuries: Military Organisation and Society in the Borderlands, ZRVI 19 (1980), 79-116, esp. 105-106. See also Canard, Relations, 41-45). This made its inhabitants, as noted by C. Galatariotou, not interested in the hostile propaganda between the two sides on both official and religious levels (C. Galatariotou, Structural Oppositions in the Grottaferrata Digenes Akrites, BMGS 11 (1987), 29-68, esp. 33); undoubtedly, the special nature of the borderlands made them a fertile environment for Byzantine policy to convert and assimilate elements from their population.
Arab and Byzantine literature, especially epics, reflect a vibrant picture of the border society and its mixed families scattered across both sides’ territories. The Byzantine epic of the ‘twyborn’ hero Digenis Akritis, relates the story of his father, the emir Mousour, and presents him as a religious oscillator who sacrificed his religion, country and people to marry a Byzantine general’s daughter named Irene, who later gave birth to the epic hero, Basil (Digenes Akrites, ed. & trans. J. Mavrogordato, Oxford 1956, 20-23; Digenis Akritis: The Grottaferrata and Escorial Versions, ed. & trans. E. Jeffreys, Cambridge 1998, 36-40, 250-252. See also, T. M. Muhammad, The Conversion from Islam to Christianity as viewed by the Author of Digenes Akrites, Collectanea Christiana Orientalia 7 (2010), 121-140). It also includes other stories about the conversion of Panthia, Mousour’s mother (Digenes Akrites, ed. Mavrogordato, 52-54; ed. Jeffreys, 59-65), and a girl called Aisha, who was seduced by a Byzantine man to escape with him to Byzantium (Digenes Akrites, ed. Mavrogordato, 156). The frequent stories of apostasy at the borderlands prompted N. Oikonomides to suggest that the epic in its entirety expresses the aspirations of these Arabs to get a place in the new society, and to have a new identity within their alternative Christian homeland (N. Oikonomides, L’ épopée de Digénis et le frontière orientale de Byzance aux Xe et XIe siècles, TM 7 (1979), 375-397, esp. 394).
On the Arab side, the vernacular prose epic of Princess Dhāt alHimma (U. Steinbach, Ḏāt al-Himma: Kulturgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zu einem arabischen Volksroman, Wiesbaden 1972; C. Ott, Metamorphosen des Epos: Sīrat al-Muğāhidīn (Sīrat al-Amīra Ḏāt al-Himma) zwischen Mündlichkeit und Schriftlichkeit, Leiden 2003. English summary of the contents in M. C. Lyons, The Arabian Epic: Heroic and Oral Story-telling, Cambridge 2005, 2: 151-211 and 3: 301-504), is filled with stories about persons resulting from such mixed marriages. It tells, for example, the story of Ẓālim’s departure with his son al-Ḥārith, the husband of Dhāt al-Himma, across the border to the Byzantium, where they married Byzantine women and gave birth to mixedblood children. And the story of the amīr ‘Abd al- Wahāb, the son of alḤārith and Dhāt al-Himma, who captured a Byzantine girl and gave birth to a child, but Byzantines succeeded in saving and returning her with the child to Byzantium to be raised according to Christianity28. There is also the story of Maymūnah, the wife of the amīr ‘Abd al-Wahāb, who fled to Byzantium and married the emperor Romanos (Armānūs) and converted her Arab servants to Christianity29.
The suffering of Muslim fathers from the loss of their children and Byzantine wives seems to have motivated many to join them when they were given the choice. When the δομέστικος John Kourkouas peacefully took over Melitene in 322/934, he erected two tents and placed the cross on one of them, giving its population the choice of leaving the city or converting to Christianity and retaining their properties and families. According to Arabic evidence, the great part of Muslims went to the side of the tent overtopped with the cross to keep their families and moveable property (Ibn Al-Athīr [555-630/1160-1233], Al-Kāmil fī al-Tārīkh, ed. A. Al-Qadi, Beirut, 1995, VII, 106. H. M. Ḥassan [Ο εκχριστιανισμός των Αράβων και ο εξισλαμισμός των Βυζαντινών: η εικόνα του «άλλου» στις αραβοβυζαντινές πηγές του 7ου και 10ου αιώνα, in: A. Kralides – A. Gkoutzioukostas (eds., as in n.3), 167-194, esp.174]).
In the letter to Leo, archbishop of Catania, Patriarch Photius emphasizes the need to re-baptize children resulting from such marriages (Photius Epistulae et Amphilochia, edd. B. Laourdas – L. G. Westerink, v. III, Leipzig 1985, 162-166, esp. 165).
As S. Ivanov has pointed out, as a result of Empire’s restoration of many territories that had been taken from it three centuries before, “the Islamicized population of these territories immediately became the subject of Christian preaching” (S. A. Ivanov, ‘Pearls before Swine’: Missionary Work in Byzantium, trans. D. Hoffman, Paris 2015, 125). If Judge ‘Abd al-Jabbār (359-415/969-1025) has greatly exaggerated the estimate of the apostates’ numbers by about 2,000,000, attributing their conversion to means of coercion or seduction (‘Abd Al-Jabbār, Tathbīt Dalā’il al-Nubuwah, ed. A. ‘Uthmān, Beirut, 1966, I, 182-183), there are other evidence for the voluntary conversion of many border inhabitants. In her dealing with the 10th century economic importance of the new territories regained by the Byzantines in the eastern borderlands, C. Holmes has shown that in some cases the price of the Muslim residence in these territories was conversion to Christianity (C. Holmes, ‘How the east was won’ in the reign of Basil II, in: A. Eastmond).
When Nikephoros Phocas peacefully conquered Tarsus in 354/965, the terms of reconciliation with its people included the free choice between leaving the city or living there with the payment of al-jizya tax or converting to Christianity. As Arabic evidence records, the later would have the privilege and dignity and blessings of his grace. Two banners were erected, one for those who favored Christianity and move to Byzantium and the other for those who wanted to leave. Accordingly, Many Muslims, who chose Christianity or who had the ability to pay al-jizya, turned to the banner of the Rūm (Ibn Miskawyh [320-421/932-1030], Kitāb Tajārub al-Umam, ed. H. F. Amedroz, Cairo 1915, II, 210-213; At-Tanūkhī, IV, 52; Yāǫūt Al-Ḥamawī, IV, 28-29; Ibn Al-Athīr, VII, 287; Ibn Kathīr [700-774/1301-1373], Al-Bidāya wa al-Nihāya, ed. A.M. Al-Bajāwī, Beirut 1992, XI, 255. Bar Hebraeus [1226-1286] Chronographia, Arab. trans. I. Armaleh, Beirut 1991, 64, appears more specific about the apostasy of the people of Tarsus. He says: Many of its Arab people were baptized, and some remained as they were, but all their children were baptized. See also C. E. Bosworth, The City of Tarsus and the Arab-Byzantine Frontiers in Early and Middle ‘Abbāsid Times, Oriens 33 (1992), 268-286, esp.278-279). The choice of Christianity as one of the basic terms of reconciliation may reflect the 10th century Byzantine superiority which was explicitly expressed in the truce of Ṣafar (359/970) between the Hamdanids and Byzantium. It guaranteed freedom and safety of the apostates from Islam (Ibn Al-‘Adīm [588-660/1192-1262], Zubdat al-Ḥalab min Tārīkh Ḥalab, ed. S. AlDahan, Damascus 1951, I, 163-8. See also W. A. Farag, The Truce of Safar, Birmingham 1977; K. A. Takirtakoglou, Οι πόλεμοι μεταξύ του Νικηφόρου Φωκά και των Αράβων, ByzSym 25(2015), 57-114, esp.110-12).
By contrast, Arabic evidence indicates that evacuation of the population and displacement of large numbers of them to Byzantium, especially children and women, are components of a different approach adopted by the Byzantines in dealing with the border cities that were taken by force. It seems that Nikephoros Phocas was the most prominent in adopting such a policy. According to Arabic evidence, when he seized Mopsuestia in 354/965 after a siege, he transferred all its population, who were about 200.000, to Byzantium (Ibn Al-Athīr, vii, 278; Ibn Miskawyh, II, 211. Bar Hebraeus, Chronographia, 64). Similarly, the geographer Ibn Ḥawqal (d.367/977) mentions that when Nikephoros Phocas seized Ma ‘arat al-Nu ‘mān in the same year, he carried with him 35,000 women, boys, and adult men (Ibn Ḥawqal, Kitāb Surat al-Arḍ, Cairo n.d., 164). Also, when he attacked Antioch in 358/969, about 20,000 boys, young men and women were moved to territories of the Rūm (Bar Hebraeus, Chronographia, 66). These figures may seem exaggerated, but Byzantine evidence itself confirms that these wars brought large numbers of captives to Byzantium (Theophanes Continuatus, Chronographia, Libri I-IV, ed. & trans. M. Featherstone).
theologian al-Qaffāl as-Shāshī (291- 365/904-976) to respond to him, in which he implicitly admits that there are many cases of apostasy among the Muslim. If some Arabs lose their sight, or many of them, like cattle, deny their religion, he said (Al-Munjid, Qaṣīdat, 31, 33)
Apostates for personal motives
There is evidence that a number of Arab dignitaries moved to Byzantium for personal reasons, such as rebellion against the authority of the Caliphate, impunity, or revenge for personal dignity against insults or injustice by a leader or caliph. One of the Prophet companions, the prominent Umayyad Rabī’a ibn Umayya, is said to have fled to Damascus and then to the king of the Rūm and converted to Christianity, because caliph ‘Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (13-23/634-644) decided to sign on him the penalty of drinking alcohol, or that he fled after committing adultery with a woman (Ibn Ḥajar Al- ‘Asqalānī (773-852/1372-1449), Al-Iṣāba fī Tamyīz al-Saḥāba, ed. A.M. Al-Bazāwī, Beirut 1992, II, 521. See also Cook, Apostasy, 261). Most importantly, Arabic evidence suggests that the status of the apostate and his leadership of a group or clan can lead to a mass conversion and transition to Byzantium (Eger, Islamic-Byzantine Frontier, 293). The alleged personal insult or abuse of the royal status of the last Ghassanid king in Syria (632-638), al-Mundhir ibn al-Ḥārith59, led him with 30,000 of his people to rebel against caliph ‘Umar ibn al- Khaṭṭāb, convert and flee to Byzantium60. The harsh defeat of Naṣr, a commander of the Khurramite rebellious religious sect of Babek, by caliph al-Mu‘taṣim (218-227/833-842) in late 833 drove him and 14,000 of his men to Byzantium and Christianity61.
Arabic evidence also presents the physical attractiveness, fitna, of Byzantine women as one of the personal reasons that can lead a Muslim to apostasy. On the Arab obsession with the beauty and attractiveness of Byzantine women see: N. M. El-Cheikh, Describing the Other to Get at the Self: Byzantine Women in Arabic Sources (8th-11th Centuries), Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 40/2 (1997), 239-250, esp. 239-240. It provides stories of male Arab lovers who have been dominated by an irresistible desire for Byzantine girls to the point that they easily sacrificed everything, land, religion, and homeland, to win these girls. Usually conversion to Christianity and going to live in Byzantium were a recurring requirement of the girls to accept the association with them, to the extent that it can be said that it became a common pattern in all the stories of love relations between the two sides. The Arab side is always represented by the male, while it is very difficult to find one story of an Arab girl in love with a Byzantine man. Such stories, despite very rare, can only be found in the epics. The love of Byzantine girls is one of the most frequent motivations of apostasy in Dhāt al-Himma, which has always focused on the beauty of these girls as a major reason that has incited many Arabs to apostatize. Among its characters is that of the fighter ‘Arqūb al-Khayām, who loved the Byzantine princess Nūra, and whose soul inclined to disbelief and made him abandon Islam (Dhāt al-Himma, II, 278-9). And that of the fighter Ṣabbāḥ ibn ‘Amir al-Kilābī, who was fond of a female slave of a Byzantine nobleman.
Although love as a motive for apostasy appears as an epic treatment, we can find similar stories in Arabic sources. The adab writer Abū alFaraj al-Iṣfahānī (284-356/897-967) tells a story of a young Muslim ascetic, zāhid, who could not resist the temptation of a Christian slave girl from Amorium and immediately fell in love with her. He gave up his companions and continued to chase her despite severe beatings from her family. The girl finally required him to apostatize in order to marry her, but he refused. However, the man continued his attempt with the girl, which led to his beating severely by the neighbors. This time, the injuries led to his death (Abū Al-Faraj Al-Iṣfahānī, Al-Dayārāt, ed. J. Al- ‘Aṭṭyeh, London 1991, 49-50).
Assimilation of apostates
The common denominator of these accounts is the image of prosperity enjoyed by the apostates in Byzantium. A comparison is often made between the flourishing and comfortable new life in Byzantium and the harsh living conditions in the former homeland. As Skylitzes points out, when Samonas’ father came to Constantinople in a diplomatic mission and saw the life his son enjoyed, he would have preferred to stay with his son and forsake his home town, Melitene. Life difficulties are presented as a motive for the apostasy of the Banū Ḥabīb (Ibn Ḥawqal, 192) and the Khurramite soldiers (Μichael the Syrian, III, 88).
Other evidence suggests that such marriages did not confine to upper class, but extended to other classes in all over the Empire, in the capital, provinces and frontiers. As al-Iṣfahānī records, the envoy of the Caliph ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Azīz to the Byzantine court met an apostate, al-Wābiṣī, who had a wife and two sons in Constantinople100. Another apostate, according to Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, had a family in Constantinople when Maslama ibn ‘Abd al-Malik attacked it in 717101. Outside the capital, the Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike (812-892) narrates a story of priests and laymen of Myriophytos, one of the villages subjected to Thessalonike, who tried to compel of Elias, who was of Arab extraction, to anathematize the iconoclast heresy, but he denied. Later, of course, realizing the remarkable miracles of St. Theodora, he anathematized the religion handed down to him by his ancestors102.
Arabic and Byzantine evidence often emphasizes the role of these apostates in the Imperial service against Muslims, especially as mercenary fighters. A major motivation on the part of the Byzantines from encouraging the mass-apostasy, notably of a border tribe or clan, was to use them for this purpose (Eger, Islamic-Byzantine Frontier, 292). Undoubtedly, the inclusion of 10,000 knights from the Banū Ḥabīb in the army was not random or without a goal. According to Ibn Ḥawqal, the clan raided Islamic lands habitually every year during the harvest. They mainly raided in the Diyār Muḍar, taking several of the frontier forts, such as Hiṣn Zīyād and Hiṣn Manṣūr109. The Khurramite regiment of 30,000 fighters participated in attacking al-Jazīra in 223/837110. In 315/927 the Abbasid summer raid (al-ṣā’ifah) that Thamāl led out from Ṭarsūs surprised a Kurdish chieftain named Ibn al-Ḍaḥāk who had taken service with the Byzantines after apostatizing from Islam111. Bunayy ibn alNafīs and his people joined a campaign led by the δομέστικος Malīḥ against Samosata and Melitene in 319/931112. Finally, Mu’nis al-Khādim, the most influential leader of the Abbasids, resorted to ibn al- Nafīs to convince the Byzantines to withdraw from Melitene113.
Perhaps the most famous apostate figure who has attained a prominent position in the imperial service is the eunuch Samonas, the πατρίκιος and παρακοιμώμενος of Leo VI, who was presented by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his De Administrando Imperio as a good adviser on economic affairs (DAI, 245). Byzantine sources provide ample information on his career in the imperial palace, and attribute to him a major role in its political scene (Σ. Κougeas, Κῶδιξ τοῦ πατρικίου Σαμωνᾶ, BΝJ 5 (1926-7), 198-204; R. Janin, Un Arabe ministre à Byzance, Samonas (IXe‐Xe siècle), EO 34 (1935), 307-18; Sh. Tougher, The Reign of Leo VI (886-912): Politics and People, Leiden 1997, 208-210; L. Rydén, The Portrait of the Arab Samonas in Byzantine Literature, Graeco-Arabica 3 (1984), 101-108). He began as a servant in the house of Stylianos Zaoutzes, the father of Empress Zoe129. After he revealed the plans of the Zaoutzes family to remove the emperor, he was granted as reward one-third of the property of this family and raised to be a κουβικουλάριος. Samonas soon became the right-hand man of Leo VI. Later, he was granted the title of πρωτοσπαθάριος, and in 906 he became πατρίκιος and raised to be παρακοιμώμενο.
This splendid career led L. Rydén to conclude his article dedicated to Samonas by saying: ‘To sum up: the Arabs were regarded as enemies, and their religion was repugnant to the Byzantines. But if an Arab became Christian and served the Christian empire loyally, there was no end to his possibilities. In theory, he could even become emperor’ (Rydén, Samonas, 108). This hypothesis is based on a suggested relationship between Samonas and two 10th century Jewish and Byzantine apocalyptic texts indicating that at the end of time an Arab would be the Last Roman Emperor. It should be noted, however, that the evidence has already claims that some apostates, through their influence in the empire, sought to take over the throne, or that some emperors actually of an Arab origins. Byzantine evidence points out the attempt of the Khurramite soldiers to proclaim their leader Theophobos as emperor after the defeat of Theophilus in Amorium in 223/838 (Genesius, 40 (trans. Kaldellis, 54); Skylitzes 74; Theophanes Continuatus (Bonn), 124; Georgius Monachus [as in n. 121], 803. For a detailed discussion of this rebellion, see J. Rosser, Theophilos’ Khurramite Policy and its Finale: The Revolt of Theophobus’ Persian Troops in 838, Βυζαντινὰ 6 (1974), 265-71. See also D. Letsios, Theophilos and his “Khurramite” Policy. Some reconsiderations, Graeco-Arabica 9-10 [= Festschrift in Honour of V. Christides] (2004) 249-271]. Genesius, 42). There was also a Byzantine tradition that ascribed an Arab, or ‘Syrian’, ancestry to Leo V (Genesius, 8 (trans. Kaldellis, 11). Ps.–Symeon [as in n. 87, 603]. See also D. Turner, The Origins and Accession of Leo V (813-820), JӦB 40 (1990), 171-203, esp. 172-3, Hussey, Orthodox Church, 34; Gero, Leo III, 141-2.).
Byzantine evidence suggests that much of the history of the Arab apostates in Byzantium was no more than a history of individuals, not families. S. Patoura has convincingly shown that many Arab immigrants “ἐντάχθηκαν εὐκολότερα στὴ νέα κοινωνία καὶ προσαρμόσθηκαν σ’ ἓνα modus vivendi μὲ ἄγνωστα σ’ ἐκείνους ἤθη καὶ ἔθιμα. ‘Ωστόσο, ή ἔνταξη αὐτὴ δέν ἐπέφερε κατ’ ἀνάγκη καὶ τὴν πλήρη ἀφομοίωσὴ τους ἀπὸ τὸ νέο περιβάλλον ἤ τὴν ἀπάρνηση τοῦ παρελθόντος τους” (Patoura, Οἱ αἰχµάλωτοι, 145).
