Following the Muslim conquest of the Levant, Syria and the surrounding region was brought under Arab rule in the first half of the seventh century, and the Jews of the land, like the Christian majority at that time, became culturally Arabized, adopting many of the ways of the new foreign elite minority rulers, including the language.The New Israel Atlas: Bible to Present Day, Zev Vilnay, Karṭa, Israel Universities Press, 1968, p. 91
