Sassanid conquest of Palestine (614 AD)

So far I have found this source written by a Georgian called Strateg
http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/antiochus_strategos_capture.htm

Originally posted by Nick1986 Was this period before or after the Persians had converted to Islam? I'm guessing the Arab warband were kin to the Persian leader: perhaps by marriage?

Of course before. This was even before Arabs conquered Palestine and Persia. The Byzantine-Sassanid war had reached a terrible climax after a few decades of relative truce. The Byzantines were somewhat weakened and forced to shift their armies to Constantinople where they were fighting the Avars.

Khosrau saw this as a great chance to strike the Byzantines while they were down. He easily crushed the few armies left to defend the border and plundered Antioch. Then he sent his general Sharbaz alongside some Jewish militias drafted from Persia as well as along the way. They became a sizeable portion of the force attacking Jerusalem and the siege easily led to the city's capture.

I heard that some sources mentioned the presence of a certain ''Saracen'' warband but I thought I could know more about this. These were turbulent times. Hard to get specific information on anything.


 

Originally posted by Cyrus Shahmiri As I have found there is almost no Persian source which describes this conquest, of course there are some mentions, but I think most of our info is from the Byzantine and Jewish sources. In Shahnameh we read about Jerusalem with different names, such as "Dej Hukht Gang", "Kang Dej Hudj" (its Parthian name), "Iliya" (the name which was given to this city by Zahhak, an evil king of Arabs), and finally "Khaneh Pakan" (House of Pure People) and "Bayt al-Muqaddas", but we read nothing about this city in the Sassanid era, it is interesting that Ferdosi had a very negative view of the great Persian general Shahrbaraz, in Shahnameh Shahrbaraz with the name of Shahran Goraz, is called as "Negahban-e Rum" (Protector of Rome), and when he seized the throne, he is mentioned as the first destroyer of the Persian empire.

I find this extremely peculiar, Cyrus. It was very customary for the Persians to flaunt their victories over the Romans as much as was possible. I don't need to remind you of the carving of Shapur and Valerian or other monuments to Persian victory over Rome. So do you think it's possible that there were records but were destroyed later on either during the conquest of Persia by the Arabs or when the library of Baghdad was set on fire? I mean the shear volume of books that were burned there means that we lost many precious sources which we will never recover.

You mentioned that Shahrbaraz was called a protector of Rome but I don't understand why. Maybe it was a way to blame the later defeat on him? Or did Ferdausi see him as a traitor?


Just as a note, it's true the Arabs called Jerusalem ''Iliya'' but this was originally a Roman name given to the region ''Aelia Capitolina''.