ABSTRACT
This chapter explores that Mu'awiya, both as governor and caliph, pursued a strikingly philo-Christian policy in many respects throughout his forty-year reign in Syria and the Jazira, his regime still amounted to a process of slow starvation for the churches and monasteries in his domain. These crucial institutions of Christian society were no longer the recipients of imperial benefactions, nor did they have access to public revenues. In general the Muslim Arabic chronicles and biographical compendia maintain a frustrating silence about the Christians of Syria and the Jazira, though one can glean something by reading between the lines and looking for incidental bits of information. The work of Sidney Griffith in particular has shown how rapidly by the late 2nd/8th century Palestinian Christian communities became Arabophone. It also meant that Christian tenants had to deal directly with Muslim superiors, and that their own religious leaders would have much less leverage in helping them.
