While these conquests were being made in the East, the forces of Omar had been making equal progress in the West.
Palestine was their destination, and Damascus, that famous city, the centre of immense trade, their first prey.
From thence they advanced upon Jerusalem, taking town after town on the way. A siege of four months convinced the Christian Patriarch that it was hopeless to hold out longer. All he now demanded was that Omar himself should come to take possession, on the ground that it was written in the sacred book of the Jews that the city should one day fall into the hands of a king having but four letters in his name.
In Arabia the word "Omar" fulfilled this condition, and forthwith the Caliph arrived, in the plainest garb, riding upon a camel, and bearing with him his pouch of grain and dates and his skin of water.
To meet him came the chieftains he had sent out two years before, clad in the rich cloths of Damascus.
"Is it thus ye come before me?" cried Omar in disgust, throwing a handful of sand in their faces. Dismayed for a moment, they recollected themselves, and, opening their gorgeous robes, revealed the armour beneath.
"Enough!" cried the Caliph. "Go forward!"
The terms arranged were by no means harsh, though clearly marking the inferior position of the conquered Christians. No crosses were to be shown, nor church bells rung in the street. A Christian must rise and stand in the presence of a Moslem. The latter might practise his religion and use his church undisturbed; but the great mosque of Omar was to rise over the ruined altar of the temple and over the sacred stone upon which the patriarch Jacob had once rested his head.
Strange as it may seem, the two races settled down side by side in peace and friendship. Both acknowledged the holiness of the Israelites of old, whose bones lay buried in the neighbourhood of the Holy City. Within its walls the Mohammedans treated with respect, if not with reverence, the worship of Him whom they regarded as a prophet not far inferior to their own. Thus four centuries rolled quietly away, until the old distinction between conquerors and conquered had almost ceased to exist, and pilgrims from all parts of Christendom were welcomed by Christian and Moslem alike.
Meantime the forces of Islam threatened to overrun the greater part of the known world. The Saracens "rode masters of the sea," throughout the Greek archipelago; their sway was recognised towards the East up to the sources of the Euphrates and Tigris, to the North they had spread over Asia Minor deep to the very walls of Constantinople, the seat of the Eastern Empire.