Palestine was conquered by the Islamic Empire, beginning in 634 CE.

In 636 CE, the Battle of Yarmouk during the Muslim conquest of Syria marks the new Muslim hegemony over the region, which becomes known as Jund Filastin within the province of Bilâd al-Shâm (Greater Syria).

The majority of the population is Christian and is to remain so until the conquest of Saladin in 1187.

The invasion appears to have had little impact on social and administrative continuities for several decades.

The word 'Arab' at the time refers predominantly to Bedouin nomads, though Arab settlement is attested in the Judean highlands and near Jerusalem by the fifth century, and some tribes had converted to Christianity.

The local population engages in farming, which is considered demeaning, are called Nabaț, referring to Aramaic-speaking villagers.

An ḥadīth, brought in the name of a Muslim freedman who settled in Palestine ordered them not to settle in the villages, for he who abides in villages it is as if he abides in graves.'

In 661 CE, with the assassination of Ali, Muawiyah I becomes the uncontested Caliph of the Islamic World after being crowned in Jerusalem.

The Dome of the Rock, completed in 691, is the world's first great work of Islamic architecture.

The Umayyads, who spur a strong economic resurgence in the area, are replaced by the Abbasids in 750.

Ramla, the major city, becomes the administrative center for the following centuries.

Tiberias became a thriving centre of Muslim scholarship.

From 878, Palestine is ruled from Egypt by semiautonomous rulers for almost a century, beginning with the Turkish freeman Ahmad ibn Tulun, for whom both Jews and Christians pray when he lies dying and ending with the Ikhshidid rulers.

Reverence for Jerusalem increases during this period, with many of the Egyptian rulers choosing to be buried there.

However, the later period becomes characterized by persecution of Christians as the threat from Byzantium grows.

The Fatimids, with a predominantly Berber army, invade the region in 970, a date that marks the beginning of a period of unceasing warfare between numerous enemies, which destroys Palestine, and in particular devastating its Jewish population.

Between 1071-73, Palestine is captured by the Great Seljuq Empire.