Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia

Religion in pre-Islamic Arabia was historically traditional, local polytheistic religions. In the fourth century, Christianity became the dominant religion in the Roman Empire, Armenia, and Ethiopia, and began to make ground among large populations of Roman Arabs across the Sinai Peninsula, Jordan, southern Syria, and in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula, where large populations of Arab Christians emerged.

The most significant populations of Arab Christians formed among Roman populations, especially in the province of Roman Arabia, and on the Arabian Peninsula, in Eastern Arabia and South Arabia, with local populations also forming in the Hejaz. With the growth of Christianity in the Arabian Peninsula in the fifth and sixth centuries, churches, monasteries, cathedrals, and martyria were built. These new institutions allowed local leaders to display benefaction towards their communities, communicate with local leaders, and act as points of communication with Christian communities abroad, such as Byzantine Christians. Major Christian centers were assigned into bishoprics, so that a bishop could act as the local religious leader for the Christians in the region. Bishoprics appeared across Eastern Arabia, North Arabia, and South Arabia (especially in Najran and Zafar).

The growth of Christianity on the Arabian Peninsula was driven by proselytism: the mains sources of proselytism were missionaries from Christian churches, especially Syrian churches, from the Byzantine Empire, Christian Iraqi populations in the Sasanian Empire (particularly from Al-Hira), and Ethiopian Christians from the newly converted Kingdom of Aksum, who, in the early sixth century, conquered Himyar, the ruling power over South Arabia. Byzantine Christians wrote many stories about holy men and miracle workers active in converting Arabs, turning them away from pagan and polytheistic idolatry. Arabian Christianity is also known from the Quran, the holy scripture of Islam, and a growing number of pre-Islamic Arabian inscriptions. Arabian Christianity did not immediately decline following the early Muslim conquests, with the most severe economic and other pressures leading to the decline of the Christian communities coming in the eighth century onwards.