Between the time of the Israelite kingdoms and the 7th-century
Muslim conquests, the Land of Israel fell under
Assyrian,
Babylonian,
Persian,
Greek,
Roman,
Sassanian, and
Byzantine rule.
[30] Jewish presence in the region dwindled after the failure of the
Bar Kokhba revolt against the
Roman Empire in 132 CE.[
citation needed] In 628/9, the Byzantine Emperor
Heraclius conducted a massacre and
expulsion of the Jews, at which point the Jewish population probably reached its lowest point. Nevertheless, a continuous Jewish presence in the Land of Israel remained. Although the main Jewish population shifted from the
Judea region to the
Galilee,
[31] the
Mishnah and
part of the Talmud, among Judaism's most important religious texts, were composed in Israel during this period.
[32] The Land of Israel was captured from the
Byzantine Empire around 636 CE during the initial Muslim conquests. Control of the region transferred between the
Umayyads,
[33] Abbasids,
[34] and
Crusaders over the next six centuries, before falling in the hands of the
Mamluk Sultanate, in 1260. In 1516, the Land of Israel became a part of the
Ottoman Empire, which ruled the region until the 20th century.
[35]