It was in consternation, then, in the summer of 634, that such converts listened to startling news brought from Palestine. There, it was reported, the Jews were cheering a fresh insult to Heraclius. The province had been invaded by ‘Saracens’: Arabs. They had killed an eminent official. They were led by a ‘prophet’. Some Jews, it was true, doubted his right to this title, ‘for prophets do not come with a sword and a war-chariot’.7 Many more were afire with excitement.
