Syria had been under Roman rule for seven centuries prior to the Arab Muslim conquest and

had been invaded by

the Sassanid Persians on a number of occasions during the 3rd, 6th and 7th centuries; it had also been subject to
raids by the Sassanid's Arab allies, the Lakhmids.[2]During the Roman period, beginning after the fall of Jerusalem in
the year 70, the entire region (Judea, Samaria, and the Galilee) was renamed Palaestina, subdivided into Diocese I
and II.[3] The Romans also renamed an area of land including the Negev, Sinai, and the west coast of the Arabian
Peninsula as Palaestina Salutaris, sometimes called Palaestina III or Palaestina Tertia.[3] Part of the area was ruled
by the Arab vassal state of the Ghassanids' symmachos.[4]During the last of the Roman-Persian Wars, beginning in
603, the Persians under Khosrau II had succeeded in occupying Syria, Palestine and Egypt for over a decade
before being forced by the victories of Heraclius to conclude the peace of 628.[5] Thus, on the eve of the Muslim
conquests the Romans (by now conventionally called Byzantines) were still in the process of rebuilding their
authority in these territories, which in some areas had been lost to them for almost twenty years.[5] Politically, the
Syrian region consisted of two provinces: Syria proper stretched from Antioch and Aleppo in the north to the top of
the Dead Sea. To the west and south of the Dead Sea lay the province of Palestine. Syria was mostly a Syriac and
Hellenized land with some Jewish presence and with a partly Arab population, especially in its eastern and southern
parts. The Syriac Christians, Jews and Arabs had been there since pre-Roman times, and some had embraced
Christianity since Constantine I legalized it in the fourth century and moved the capital from Italy
to Byzantium (renamed Constantinople), from which the name Byzantine is derived.
The Arabs of Syria were people of no consequence until the migration of the powerful Ghassan tribe from Yemen to
Syria, who thereafter ruled a semi-autonomous state with their own king under the Romans. The Ghassan Dynasty
became one of the honoured princely dynasties of the Empire, with the Ghassan king ruling over the Arabs in
Jordan and Southern Syria from his capital at Bosra. The last of the Ghassan kings, who ruled at the time of the
Muslim invasion, was Jabla bin Al Aiham.
The Byzantine (Roman) Emperor Heraclius, after re-capturing Syria from the Sassanians, set up new defense lines
from Gaza to the south end of the Dead Sea. These lines were only designed to protect communications from
bandits, and the bulk of the Byzantine defenses were concentrated in Northern Syria facing the traditional foes, the
Sassanid Persians. This defense line had as a drawback that it enabled the Muslims, who emerged from the desert
in the south, to reach as far north as Gaza before meeting regular Byzantine troops.
The 7th century was a time of fast military changes in the Byzantine Empire. The empire was certainly not in a state
of collapse when it faced the new challenge from Arabia after being exhausted by recent RomanPersian Wars, but
failed completely to tackle the challenge effectively.