In fact they were (the Arabs). In Prophet Muhamad's Achtiname he orders ALL MUSLIMS to protect Christians with the penalty of internal curse if they disobey. His Son In Law when conquered Jerusaleem in 638 AD he published another Achtiname that all Christians (pingrims and domestic) are under the Authority of the Patriarch of Jerusaleem. Proof is that Greek-Orthodox Churches and Monasteries still exist in Egypt and Holly Lands. Things changed in the 1st Crusade when the barbarian Crusaders slained all people under the motto "kill them all God will recognise his own). In the ERA TGC focuses there were autrocities mainly from the Emirate of Crete but in the Romano-Abbasid wars autrocities had no meaning because borders changed almost every day, It had no meaning to slain a village population that after a while it will be in your lands. Too bad the Snt Cathrine's Monastery page does not have Prophet's Achtiname in english but only in Greek. The 1st Muslims that converted Churches to Mosques were the Turks (actually Greeks that converted to Islam) and for that they were named heretics!
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