Ближний Восток и его соседи

g 64 h Vassilios Christides been challenged by A. D. Ṭaha, who persuasively asserts that the Berbers themselves chose these various areas, being attracted to both mountainous and flat land. 11 Though the first Muslim Arab settlers and Muslim Berbers ( al-Baladiyūn ) were rivals, they formed a special, privileged group in con- trast to the later immigrants, the Syrians ( al-Shāmiyūn ), whose social posi- tion was inferior. Christians Since forced islamization is prohibited in the Qur’ān and was rarely used on a large scale by the Arabs, the number of native Spaniards who converted to Islam was limited at the time of the rule of Ḥakam I. According to D. Was- serstein, 12 it is only in the middle of the 10 th century that the Christians in the Iberian Peninsula started converting to Islam in large numbers. True, a few no- table examples of Christians voluntarily converting to Islam appear as early as the first years of the Muslim conquest of Spain, specifically some inhabitants who belonged to the Gothic aristocracy, but they were rare cases. 13 It is beyond the scope of the present author to discuss the various ways of the process of islamization in the Iberian Peninsula since, as was correctly pointed out by A. Harrison, we cannot acquire enough information from the Muslim sources because of “their disinclination to mention dhimmi (protected religious groups) within Islam”. 14 It is worth mentioning here that although the islamization in Egypt appeared from the early days of the Arab conquest 15 , its completion was a lengthy process. 16 The role of the Christians during the period of Ḥakam I is of particular importance because, as it will be seen, in Cordoba Ḥakam placed them in key positions and entrusted them with his safety. d’Espagne , London 1913, 139. The same view appears in Barrucand and Bednorz, Moorish Ar- chitecture in Andalusia , 32. 11 Ṭāha, The Muslim Conquest and Settlement of North Africa and Spain, 166 ff. 12 D. Wasserstein, The Rise and Fall of the Party-Kings, Politics and Society in Islamic Spain, 1002–1086 , Princeton 1985, 23. 13 Barrucand and Bednorz, Moorish Architecture in Andalusia , 32. 14 A. Harrison, “Behind the Curve: Bulliet and Conversion to Islam in al-Andalus Revisited”, Al-Masāq 24.1 (2012), 35–51. 15 R. H. Charles, trans., The Chronicle of John, Bishop of Nikiu , London-Oxford 1916, 201. 16 See some early examples in V. Christides, “Miṣr”, EI 2 , VII (1993), 156 (article: 152–160); see also Ch. Décobert, “Sur l’arabisation et l’islamisation de l’Égypte médiévale”, Itinéraires d’ Égypte , Cairo 1992, 273–300; J.-C. Garcin, “L’arabisation de l’Égypte”, Revue de l’Occident musulman et de la Méditerranée 43 (1987), 130–137.