Monophysite Christians constituted a prominent Byzantine sect who espoused the view that Christ had only "one (mono-) nature (-physis)." That is, they challenged the orthodox presumption that Christ was both mortal and divine. To this incarnation of Christianity belonged none other than Theodora, the Byzantine empress and wife of Justinian. In its devotion to a single divinity uncomplicated by human manifestation, Islam appealed to many Monophysites in the Near East.

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