Byzantium and the Arabs in the Sixth Century, Volume II, Part 2: Economic, Social, and Cultural History

摘要

Influenced by the gravitational pull of Byzantium in its tripartite structure of Romanitas, Hellenism, and Christianity, they created a unique and mature Christian culture in the Diocese of Oriens in the shadow of the Roman Empire, a culture which, Shahîd reminds his reader, obtained only once in Arab history. The wars that the Ghassânids were called upon to fight became spiritualized and became more meaningful by being harnessed to the ideals of their religious faith as they undertook religious war in defense of the Christian Roman Empire, its Holy Land, and in campaigns against the Persians and the Lakhmid Arabs.