Michele Piccirillo

And then, as late as the 12th century, they convert to Islam.

The Italian archaeologist Michele Piccirillo told me, after decades of excavation on this period, he said, it's archaeologically invisible.

The conquest was carried out by a small warrior elite from the Hejaz who replaced the Byzantine administration, but without replacing the population.

The shift of languages was a shift between two closely related Semitic tongues.