Many ancient civilizations began in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East. These were Sumer, Babylonia and Assyria in the area called Mesopotamia. The Abrahamic religions that believe in one God also started in the Middle East. (Judaism and Christianity began in ancient Palestine and Islam began in Arabia.) Today, the Middle East is the homeland of Arabs, Turks, Persians, Kurds, and Jews, among many other ethnic groups. Islam is the most common religion in the Middle East. Islam came to most of the Middle East's lands in the 7th century AD, during the first Muslim conquests of the Sasanian Empire and of the Roman Empire's lands.