Note 5 — Chapter III · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM AMONG THE CHRISTIAN NATIONS OF WESTERN ASIA.

The national character of this ethnic movement of migration naturally attracted to the invading Arab hosts the outlying representatives of the Arab race through whom the path of the conquering armies lay. Accordingly it is not surprising to find that many of the Christian Bedouins were swept into the rushing tide of this great movement and that Arab tribes, who for centuries had professed the Christian religion, now abandoned it to embrace the Muslim faith. Among these was the tribe of the Banū G͟hassān, who held sway over the desert east of Palestine and southern Syria, of whom it was said that they were “Lords in the days of the ignorance and stars in Islam.”5 After the battle of Qādisiyyah (A.H. 14) in which the Persian army under Rustam had been utterly discomfited, many Christians belonging to the Bedouin tribes on both sides of the Euphrates came to the Muslim general and said: “The tribes that at the first embraced Islam were wiser than we. Now that Rustam hath been slain, we will accept the new belief.”6 Similarly, after the conquest of northern Syria, most of the Bedouin tribes, after hesitating a little, joined themselves to the followers of the Prophet.7