| Jund Filastin | |||||||||
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| Province of theUmayyad,Abbasid andFatimidCaliphates | |||||||||
| 630s–late 11th century | |||||||||
 Early Islamic Syria (Bilad al-Sham) and its provinces under theAbbasid Caliphate in the 9th century | |||||||||
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• Established | 630s | ||||||||
• Seljuk attacks,First Crusade | late 11th century | ||||||||
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Jund Filasṭīn (Arabic:جُنْد فِلَسْطِيْن, "themilitary district ofPalestine") was one of the military districts of theUmayyad andAbbasid province ofBilad al-Sham (Levant), organized soon after theMuslim conquest of the Levant in the 630s. Jund Filastin, which encompassed most ofPalaestina Prima andPalaestina Tertia, included the newly established city ofRamla as its capital and eleven administrative districts (kura), each ruled from a central town.[1]
The Muslim conquest of Palestine is difficult to reconstruct, according to the historianDominique Sourdel.[2] It is generally agreed that theQurayshite commanderAmr ibn al-As was sent to conquer the area by CaliphAbu Bakr,[3][4] likely in 633.[4] Amr traversed theRed Sea coast of theHejaz (western Arabia), reached the port town ofAyla at the head of theGulf of Aqaba, then crossed into theNegev Desert or further west into theSinai Peninsula. He then arrived to the villages of Dathin and Badan nearGaza, where he entered negotiations with the Byzantine garrison commander. The talks collapsed and the Muslims bested the Byzantines in the subsequentclash at Dathin in February or March 634.[2][3] At this stage of the conquest Amr's troops encamped at Ghamr al-Arabat in the middle of theAraba Valley between theDead Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba.[3] The town of Gaza was left alone, with Amr's primary objective at the time being the subjugation of the Arab tribes in the vicinity.[5]
After the Muslim armies led byKhalid ibn al-Walid capturedBosra in theHauran in May 634 they crossed theJordan River to reinforce Amr as he faced a large Byzantine army. In the ensuingBattle of Ajnadayn, fought at a site 25 kilometers (16 mi) southwest ofJerusalem in July or August, the Muslims under Amr's overall command routed the Byzantines.[6] In the aftermath of Ajnadayn, Amr captured the towns ofSebastia,Nablus,Lydda,Yibna,Amwas,Bayt Jibrin andJaffa.[7] Most of these towns fell after minor resistance, hence the scant information available about them in the sources.[8]
Following the decisive Muslim victory against the Byzantines at theBattle of Yarmouk (636), fought along theYarmouk tributary of the Jordan River east of Palestine, Amr besieged Jerusalem, which held out until the arrival of CaliphUmar, to whom Jerusalem's leaders surrendered in 637.[9] The coastal towns of Gaza,Ascalon andCaesarea had continued to hold out. The commanderAlqama ibn Mujazziz may have been sent against Byzantine forces in Gaza several times during and after Ajnadayn.[10] Amr launched his conquest of Egypt from Jerusalemc. 640.[11] Caesarea was besieged for a lengthy period and captured most likely byMu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan in 639, 640 or 641.[8] Not long after, Mu'awiya captured Ascalon, completing the conquest of Palestine,[9] most of which had been undertaken by Amr.[4]
Filastin became one of the four originaljunds (military districts) ofBilad al-Sham (Islamic Syria) established by Caliph Umar.[12] In effect the Muslims maintained the preexisting administrative organization of the Byzantine district ofPalaestina Prima.[9]
TheUmayyad period (661–750) was a relatively prosperous period for Filastin and the Umayyad caliphs invested considerably in the district's development.[13] According to Sourdel, "Palestine was particularly honoured in the Umayyad period".[9] The first Umayyad caliph, Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, who held overall authority over Syria, including Palestine, from the reign of CaliphUthman (r. 644–656), was initially recognized as caliph in a ceremony in Jerusalem.[9]
On the other hand, a change in the Syrian policy during theAbbasid period resulted in an overall decline in the region. The Levant was now further from the seat of authority as the capital relocated from Damascus to Baghdad. The new policy preferred Iraq over the Levant due to suspicion of the local Muslim population's loyalty, as they strongly identified with the Abbasid's rivals, the former Umayyad dynasty. Moreover, the Abbasids promoted trade with eastern lands such asTang China and theKingdoms of India. This led to neglect, political unrest, and occasionally local rebellions, one of which is theAl-Mubarqa. A process of urban decline is believed to had been accelerated by the749 earthquake, which increased the number of Jews, Christians, and Samaritans who migrated to diaspora settlements while also leaving behind others who stayed in the devastated towns and impoverished villages until they embraced Islam.[14]
At its greatest extent, Filastin extended from Rafah in the south toLajjun in the north, and from the Mediterranean coast well to the east of the southern part of theJordan River. The mountains ofEdom, and the town ofZoar (Sughar) at the southeastern end of theDead Sea were included in the district. However, theGalilee was excluded, being part ofJund al-Urdunn in the north.[15] Filastin roughly comprised the regions ofSamaria,Judea, and the adjacent Mediterranean coastal plain fromMount Carmel in the north to Gaza in the south.[2]
According toal-Baladhuri, the main towns of Filastin, following its conquest by theRashidun Caliphate, were, from south to north,Rafah, Gaza, Bayt Jibrin, Yibna, Amwas, Lydda, Jaffa, Nablus, Sebastia, and Caesarea.[15] Under Byzantine rule the port city of Caesarea was the territory's capital, a natural choice as it eased communications with the capitalConstantinople. After the Muslim conquest, the administrative focus shifted to the interior. Amwas was referred to as aqasaba in the early Islamic sources; the term could refer to a central town, but most likely meant a fortified camp in the case of Amwas. It served as the principal military camp of the Muslim troops, where spoils were divided and stipends paid, until it was abandoned by the troops in 639 due to theplague of Amwas.[16] From about 640 Ludd and/orJerusalem have been determined as the capital or political-religious center of Filastin, according to modern historians.[16][a]
After the caliphSulayman ibn Abd al-Malik founded the city ofRamla next to Ludd, he designated it the capital, and most of Ludd's inhabitants were forced to settle there. In the 9th century, duringAbbasid rule, Jund Filastin was the most fertile of Syria's districts, and contained at least twentymosques, despite its small size.[15]
After theFatimids conquered the district from the Abbasids,Jerusalem eventually became the capital, and the principal towns were Ascalon, Ramla, Gaza,Arsuf, Caesarea, Jaffa,Jericho, Nablus, Bayt Jibrin, andAmman.[15] The district persisted in some form until theSeljuk invasions and theCrusades of the late 11th century.[citation needed]
At the time of the Muslim conquest, Filastin had been inhabited mainly byAramaic-speakingMiaphysite Christian peasants.[15]Samaria, in the northern part of the district, had a largeSamaritan population.[17]
Two separate gradual demographic processes—culturalArabization and religiousIslamization—were initiated after the Islamic conquest.[18] It is believed that the settlements of Arabians, both before and after the Muslim conquest contributed at least partially to the pace of Arabization and Islamization.[19][20][21][22] The principalArabian tribes which inhabited Filastin and formed its army were theLakhm,Judham,Kinana,Khath'am,Khuza'a, andAzd Sarat.[23] However, theinhabitants of Palestine did not become predominantly Muslim and Arab in identity until several centuries after the conquest[15] with full Arabization achieved by the 9th century, and mass-Islamization not until the Mamluk period.[24]
Samaria was one of the first regions in Palestine to undergo a process of mass-conversions prior to theFirst Crusade. It was predominantlySamaritan and Christian during the Byzantine period, but during the early Islamic period, particularly under Abbasid and Tulunid rule, Samaria was gradually Islamized through the conversions of an indefinite yet large number of Samaritans as a result of religious persecution, high taxation, droughts, and warring, as well as migration byArabian tribes.[24] By the end of the 10th century, the rural Samaritan population had "disappeared," and the remaining Samaritans had concentrated in urban areas, with Nablus serving as a major center, but there was also a Samaritan diaspora, establishing communities in Caesarea and Askhelon, and even beyond Palestine in Levantine cities such as Aleppo, Damascus, and Sarepta.[25][26][17][27]
The ChristianMelkite community underwent a process of adoption of Arabic andArabization, but was able to avoid Islamization and preserve its religious and cultural identity for a longer period of time[18] until mass conversions to Islam in the Mamluk,[24] as well as the Ottoman periods.[28]
The governors of Jund Filastin:
Information about the Fatimid provincial administration in Filastin, as with the other provinces in Bilad al-Sham, is scant, and largely limited to the period of 1023–1025, which was covered by the surviving fragment of the chronicle ofal-Musabbihi (d. 1029). It is not clear to what degree the governor (wali) of Filastin's capital of Ramla was responsible for the rest of the province. The governor of Ramla was in charge of the local police force, but theqadi (head judge) in the city was appointed directly by the caliph's court as was the auditor (zimmam) of the fiscal administrator (amil) of Filastin. At least one military governor (mutawali harb) of Filastin,Anushtakin al-Dizbari, is named.[62] Other cities in Filastin, including Jerusalem, Caesarea,[63] andAsqalan, also had their own governors, with the governors of Asqalan at one point holding the highest rank of any provincial governor in the Fatimid Caliphate.[64]
Yet, in spite of the strong Arabization, they seem to have been a close-knit group with a strong religious and cultural identity, which they preserved through the centuries following the Arab conquest, and even through the crucial process of Arabization. In the case of the Arabicized Melkite community, Arabization should not be confused with Islamization. [...] the existing evidence concerning the Palestinian Melkite community throughout the early Muslim period indicates that it battled successfully in its confrontation with Islam, preserving its social structure and maintaining its group identity and communal cohesion by accepting the Arabic culture, yet adhering strongly to its Christian identity.
From the data given above it can be concluded that the Muslim population of Central Samaria, during the early Muslim period, was not an autochthonous population which had converted to Christianity. They arrived there either by way of migration or as a result of a process of sedentarization of the nomads who had filled the vacuum created by the departing Samaritans at the end of the Byzantine period [...] To sum up: in the only rural region in Palestine in which, according to all the written and archeological sources, the process of Islamization was completed already in the twelfth century, there occurred events consistent with the model propounded by Levtzion and Vryonis: the region was abandoned by its original sedentary population and the subsequent vacuum was apparently filled by nomads who, at a later stage, gradually became sedentarized
