Samaritan Responses to Arab and Islamic Culture
(634 - present)

Samaritan Translation of the Torah into Arabic
Scribe: Israel ben Jacob ben Israel Damascus, 1365-67
ms. 9492

As harsh as life was for the Samaritans under Byzantine rule, the advent of Islamic rule was no relief. Beginning with the conquest of Palestine by Arab Muslim armies (634-44), the Samaritan community embarked on a thirteen-century long experience under Islam that was marked on the one hand by persecution and the other by close cooperation and an extremely productive cultural synthesis with the Arab-Islamic milieu. As in the Byzantine era, political oppression seemed to go hand in hand with religious and literary innovation.

Because the Samaritans did not clearly meet the requirements of a "people of the Book" under Islamic law, their Muslim rulers did not always grant them the same protections they granted to Jews and Christians. Under Abbasid rule of Palestine (750-970), the already imperiled Samaritan hold over agricultural lands was all but lost, and many Samaritans converted to Islam. By the end this period, the Samaritans had gone from a large population of farmers scattered throughout Samaria to a tiny community of villagers concentrated entirely in Nablus (the Arabicized name of Neapolis). Although life improved under Fatimid rule (970-1099), at one point in the eleventh century five hundred Samaritan families were expelled from Nablus to Damascus (which then grew into a rival Samaritan cultural center).

The Samaritans' reaction to such protracted misfortune was not to turn their backs on the culture around them. On the contrary, they were among the first groups to adapt to the new Arab-Islamic civilization, adopting its language, dress, and mores as well as salient aspects of its intellectual culture and cosmopolitan style. To be sure, this was partly a way of currying favor with their rulers, since they were often denied protection by other means. As a result of their willingness to compromise, Samaritans came to serve in the upper echelons of provincial government under medieval Islamic regimes. They abandoned Aramaic for Arabic, and, like the Jews, adapted it to the needs of their religious literature, using it for biblical translations and commentaries, works of law and philosophy, as well as astronomical treatises and other scientific works. Elements of their liturgical practice also gave way to Islamic influence.

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