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his evidence of Judeo-Arab intimacy is complemented by indications ofa marked hostility towards Christianity on the part of the invaders. Theconverted Jew of the Doctrina protests that he will not deny Christ, the son ofGod, even if the Jews and Saracens catch him and cut him to pieces. 31 TheChristian garrison of Gaza put the same determination into practice, and wasmartyred for it. 32 A contemporary sermon includes among the misdeeds of theSaracens the burning of churches, the destruction of monasteries, the profanationof crosses, and horrific blasphemies against Christ and the church. 33 A violentSaracen hatred of the cross is also attested in an early account of the arrival ofthe invaders on Mt Sinai. 34 And the doctrinal corollary of all this finds neatexpression when the Armenian source mentioned above has an early Ishmaeliteruler call upon the Byzantine emperor to renounce 'that Jesus whom you callChrist and who could not even save himself from the Jews'. 35 There is nothinghere to bear out the Islamic picture of a movement which had already brokenwith the Jews before the conquest, and regarded Judaism and Christianity withthe same combination of tolerance and reserve

What the materials examined so far do not provide is a concrete pictureof the way in which this Judeo-Arab involvement might have come about. Forthis we have to turn to the earliest connected account of the career of theProphet, that given in an Armenian chronicle written in the 660s and ascribed toBishop Sebeos. 36 The story begins with the exodus of Jewish refugees fromEdessa following its recovery by Heraclius from the Persians towards 628:They Set out into the desert and came to Arabia, among the children of Ishmael;they sought their help, and explained to them that they were kinsmen accordingto the Bible. Although they [the Ishmaelites] were ready to accept this dosekinship, they [the Jews] nevertheless could not convince the mass of the people,because their cults were different. At this time there was an Ishmaelite calledMahm•t, 37 a merchant; he presented himself to them as though at God'scommand, as a preacher, as the way of truth, and taught them to know the God