 The army of Heraclius [Byzantium] we shall indeed ... repulse from the city.Another key reason for the welcome of the Arabs as rulers by the Christian Syrians and Egyptians, is that they found the strict monotheism of Islam closer to their own Monophysite Christian position than the hated doctrine of Constantinople, which they perceived as bitheism.On 11 February 641 Heraclius, emperor for 31 years, who had pulled the Empire back from the brink of ruin, died.