Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 114 h Dimitrios G. Letsios Arabs and Arabia in the Byzantine Sources: Hagiographical Testimonies 1 Abstract: There was an initial, perhaps logical unwillingness to extensively include in a project dealing with the perception of Arabs and Arabia hagiographical material and consequently only a few works of this genre have been selected, on the basis of their particular impact. Nonetheless, I take this opportunity to stress the essential contribution of Byzantine hagiography for understanding the Arab history and civilization. Likewise, I would stress that Arab history exceeds the chronological framework set for the project in question, “Byzantine Literary Sources for the History and Civilization of Arabs and Arabia (7th-12th c.)”, and a look on the past was necessary, in order to properly understand the information included in later works, some of them such as Photios’ Bibliotheca , being a prominent example of antiquarian selection.  However even works that raise questions as to their perception of the Arabs, such as e.g., the Life of Saint Theoktiste of Lesbos or the Life of Gregory of Decapolis , included in our selection, can provide relevant information, in some cases supported by other literary works. In addition, earlier hagiographical material, for instance the Martyrdom of Arethas , is essential 1 Paper presented at the workshop “Arabs and Arabia in Byzantine literary sources: People, places, mentalities”, October 8–9, 2021, Athens, in the framework of a project to elaborate a digital database about “Byzantine Literary Sources for the History and Civilization of Arabs and Arabia (7th–12th c.)”. (Published with the kind permission of the Organizers of the Workshop).