@what is “occupation”

You said; “the true egyptians.. the coptics (before the arabs invaded from arabia in 640 ce)

interesting how many native peoples of the maghreb and the rest of the middle east have been swallowed up and occupied by the arabs of arabia…”

Where do you come by this information?

The growth of Islam in these countries was “NOT” due to a sudden influx of Arabs but gradual conversion to Islam by the native population who later were termed “Arabs”. The predominant population of Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq), Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt were Arab Christians.

Historical documents and archaeological findings shows with the preponderance of evidence that the first Christian community and church took root in Mesopotamia, what is now known as Iraq.

The Apostle Thomas and his cousin Addai first brought Christianity to the Parthian capital of Seleucia-Ctesiphon (20 miles from Baghdad) where the Gospel was preached to the Assyrians by the Apostle Thomas himself whom like Christ spoke the Assyrians native tongue referred to amongst Jewish scholars as Kitav Ashuri (Assyrian writing). However, it’s been accepted to refer to the Assyrian language as Aramaic since Christ spoke it.

The majority of the Arab population had converted from Judaism to Christianity by the second century such as the Nestorians, Monophysites, Jacobites Copts and Assyrians giving Iraqi’s people of the past (the Assyrians) a legitimate claim to being the first Christian nation in history. At the Council of Nicaea, where the words of the Christian creed were thrashed out in 325 AD, there were more bishops from Mesopotamia and India than there were from western Europe.

Fired by their new faith, the Arab Christians began one of the most successful missionary enterprises of all time. By the end of the twelfth century the Assyrian Church spanned the Asian continent, from Syria to the Philippines. Marco Polo reported that during his visit to China in the thirteenth century, he was astonished to find Assyrian priests in the Chinese royal court, and tens of thousands of Chinese Christians. The Assyrian missionaries had been there since the sixth century, and had made such an impact that the first Mongolian system of writing used the Assyrian alphabet.

The pre-Islamic Middle East was dominated by the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. The Roman-Persian Wars between the two had devastated the inhabitants, making the empires unpopular amongst the local tribes. Furthermore, most of the Christian Churches in these lands such as Nestorians, Monophysites, Jacobites and Copts were under pressure from the Christian Orthodoxy who deemed them as heretics.

(NOTE: Curiously, in the West the Book of Revelation was long regarded as unauthentic, while Shepherd of Hermas was considered genuine even though it had long gone out of fashion in the East, so that the Greek manuscripts of it are but two in number; whereas in the West it became better known and was frequently copied in the Middle Ages)

During the time of Muhammad (According to the Koran Muhammad is a prophet of revelations told to him by the archangel Gabriel) there was wide range of interpretations of the message of Jesus of Nazareth. So many that the region had become a refuge for groups considered heretical by the Orthodox Byzantine emperors – Bahira became a heretical monk, whose views inspired the Qur’an (Muhammad was greatly influenced by the Christian Monk Bahira). Many Christian authors maintain that Bahira’s works formed the basis the Qur’an which conforms to the principles of Christianity. The names and religious affiliations of the monk vary in different Christian sources. For Al-Kindi, who calls him Sergius and writes that he later called himself Nestorius, Bahira was a Nestorian. After the 9th century, Byzantine polemicists refer to him as Baeira or Pakhyras, both being derivatives of the name Bahira, and describe him as an iconoclast. Sometimes Bahira is called a Jacobite or an Arian. Bahira is at the center of the Apocalypse of Bahira, which exists in Syriac and Arabic which makes the case for an origin of the Qur’an from Christian apocrypha. Christian authors maintain that Bahira’s works formed the basis of those parts of the Qur’an that conform to the principles of Christianity.

Surprisingly, (to me), Jesus occupies a place in the Koran superior to all the prophets who preceded him. He is believed to be the son of God (not a God) born from the virgin Mary (who is also not a God) through Gods will.

Muhammad was raised a Christian and was taught Judeo-Christian theology from child hood as he belonged to the Banu Hashim, the most important family in the Quraish tribe. Its importance came from their being the decedents of the prophet Abraham himself (the ancestor of Muhammad through his other son Ishmael) and so the family had inherited the role as the keepers of the Kaaba.

NOTE: The Kaaba is a large cubical building believed by Muslims to date back to the time of Adam and Eve. The Kaaba was rebuilt built by Abraham and his son Ishmael around 2000 BC. Near the Kaaba are the graves of prophet Ishmael and his mother Hagar.

Anyway to some it up I feel I need to repeat for the sake of historical accuracy that the growth of Islam in these countries was “NOT” due to a sudden influx of Arabs but gradual conversion to Islam by the native population who later were termed “Arabs”. The predominant population of Mesopotamia (today’s Iraq), Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon and Egypt were Arab Christians.