ABSTRACT
The Armenian chronicler Sebeos, writing in the 660s, relates the exploits of a number of Jewish refugees of the Byzantine-Persian war (602-28), who had sought asylum in Edessa. When they saw that the Persian army had withdrawn and left the town in peace, diey closed the gates and barricaded themselves in. But soon, besieged by order of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius and realizing they could not win, they surrendered and were told to return to their own homes.
They set out into the desert and came to Arabia, among the children of Ishmael; they sought their help and explained that they were kinsmen according to the Bible. Although they (the Arabs) were willing to accept this close kinship, they (the Jews) nevertheless could not convince the mass of the people because their cults were different. At this time there was an Ishmaelite called Mahmet, a merchant; he presented himself to them as though at God's command, as a preacher, as the way of truth, and taught them to know the God of Abraham, for he was very well informed and very well acquainted with the story of Moses. As the command came from on high, they all united under the authority of a single man, under a single law and, abandoning vain cults, returned to the living God who had revealed himself to their father Abraham . . . Then they all gathered together from Havila unto Shur and before Egypt; they came out of the desert of Pharan divided into twelve tribes according to the lineages of their patriarchs. They distributed among their tribes the twelve thousand Israelites, a thousand per tribe, to guide them into the land of Israel . . . All that remained of the peoples of the children of Israel came to join them, and they constituted a mighty army. 1
