ABSTRACT
A survey of regulations dealing with conversion and apostasy in Islamic, Christian, and Jewish legal sources from the early Islamic period provides some of the historical background behind Pumbedita Rav Hayya Ga'on's statement. These regulations allow new insights regarding the process of conversion of the first non-Muslims who joined Muslim ranks during the first few centuries following the conquest. This chapter includes Gaonic responsa, the collection of questions and answers exchanged between the ge'onim, the supreme Jewish Rabbanite authorities in Babylonia, that is, Iraq, and their supporters throughout the Near East and the Mediterranean basin. They cover a wide range of legal topics, including questions of ritual, civil law, and communal administration, and provide a useful mirror of Jewish life of their time. The chapter also includes East Syrian legal regulations, gathered in the form of codified legal collections, and were compiled by East Syrian ecclesiastical leaders in the region of the former Sasanian Empire in the eighth and ninth centuries.
