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R.W. Bulliet "Conversion to Islam and Emergence of a Muslim Society in Iran." /Conversion to Islam/. Nehemia Levtzion, ed. BP52.C66
has an interesting name-study that develops the following scenario, tracking the proportions of four classes of names: Arab names, Biblical/Quranic names, Persian names, and particularly Muslim names.
Early converts are from the lower classes, who raise their socio-economic status by affiliation with the Arab invaders and take Arab names. Subsequent converts from higher classes choose biblical names that could also identify Christians or Jews. As being Muslim becomes progressively more socially acceptable, particularly Muslim names are used more frequently, and Persian names are avoided as hostile to the ruling regime, and biblical names become more rare as the religious ambiguity becomes embarrassing. Then, as society becomes Muslim-dominated, biblical names are used more frequently because the small set of particularly Muslim names makes them less useful for identification. Later, when Iranian Muslim identity is secure, and anti-Arab no longer means anti-Muslim, usage of Persian names revives.
S.P. Brock "Syriac views of Emergent Islam." /Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society/. G.H.A. Juynboll, ed. BP55.S88 1982
has an interesting discussion of the words used for the invaders and the invasion, indicating that contemporaries saw it in political, rather than religious, terms. Which I guess isn't that surprising.
Basically, the churches in the Middle East were so consumed with sectarian hostility, they just about exterminated themselves in enthusiasm over the invaders' destruction of their coreligionist enemies. It was (by all three denominations in the area) seen as punishment for heresy, or sexual sin, or general laxity, in each other's (and sometimes their own) congregations.
Brock is liberal with the entertaining tidbits.
Christian sources highlight Jewish influence on Islam, so that their record of Abu Bakr's address to his generals upon departure to Syria sounds like Deuteronomy 20 -- "kill neither old man nor child nor woman; do not force the stylites to come down from their columns, do not harm the solitaries, because they have set their lives apart to worship God. Do not cut down any tree or lay waste cultivated land, and do not hamstring any domesticated animals"
Bar Hebraeus quotes the emperor Heraklios as saying Islam occupies a shade of gray between the light of Christianity and the darkness of paganism.
The BPL is such a blessing to armchair scholars.
has an interesting name-study that develops the following scenario, tracking the proportions of four classes of names: Arab names, Biblical/Quranic names, Persian names, and particularly Muslim names.
Early converts are from the lower classes, who raise their socio-economic status by affiliation with the Arab invaders and take Arab names. Subsequent converts from higher classes choose biblical names that could also identify Christians or Jews. As being Muslim becomes progressively more socially acceptable, particularly Muslim names are used more frequently, and Persian names are avoided as hostile to the ruling regime, and biblical names become more rare as the religious ambiguity becomes embarrassing. Then, as society becomes Muslim-dominated, biblical names are used more frequently because the small set of particularly Muslim names makes them less useful for identification. Later, when Iranian Muslim identity is secure, and anti-Arab no longer means anti-Muslim, usage of Persian names revives.
S.P. Brock "Syriac views of Emergent Islam." /Studies on the First Century of Islamic Society/. G.H.A. Juynboll, ed. BP55.S88 1982
has an interesting discussion of the words used for the invaders and the invasion, indicating that contemporaries saw it in political, rather than religious, terms. Which I guess isn't that surprising.
Basically, the churches in the Middle East were so consumed with sectarian hostility, they just about exterminated themselves in enthusiasm over the invaders' destruction of their coreligionist enemies. It was (by all three denominations in the area) seen as punishment for heresy, or sexual sin, or general laxity, in each other's (and sometimes their own) congregations.
Brock is liberal with the entertaining tidbits.
Christian sources highlight Jewish influence on Islam, so that their record of Abu Bakr's address to his generals upon departure to Syria sounds like Deuteronomy 20 -- "kill neither old man nor child nor woman; do not force the stylites to come down from their columns, do not harm the solitaries, because they have set their lives apart to worship God. Do not cut down any tree or lay waste cultivated land, and do not hamstring any domesticated animals"
Bar Hebraeus quotes the emperor Heraklios as saying Islam occupies a shade of gray between the light of Christianity and the darkness of paganism.
The BPL is such a blessing to armchair scholars.