[341] That is, their tax was called úshr (‘tenth’), the tithe paid by the believer, instead of jazia. It may be doubted whether the intolerant condition, forbidding the education of the children in Christian doctrine, was meant otherwise than as a nominal indication of the supremacy of Islam. It certainly was not enforced (if at all) with any rigour, for we read of this great tribe continuing in the profession of Christianity under the Omeyyad, and even under the Abbasside, dynasties. And in still later times they had their bishops at Ana, on the Euphrates. (See Caussin de Perceval, v. iii. p. 324.)
We now part with that invaluable author, whose history closes with this narrative.
[342] Nothing illustrates the vagueness of the Syrian narrative so forcibly as the uncertainty of the year in which Cæsarea fell. Byzantine historians make the siege last seven years, and place the fall in the year A.H. 19, that is, A.D. 640. Various traditions place it in every year between A.H. 14 and A.H. 20, and represent the siege as having lasted, some three, some four, some seven years.
A Jew is said to have betrayed the town by discovering to the Arabs an undefended aqueduct, through which they effected an entrance. The population was mixed; 70,000, we are told, were Greeks, fed (murtazac) from the public stores; 30,000 Samaritans; and 200,000 (?) Jews. It was a sad fate that of the captives. It is mentioned incidentally that two were made over to the daughters of Asâd ibn Zorâra, one of the twelve leaders, in place of two from Ain Tamar, who had died in their service. Multitudes of Greeks—men and women—must have pined miserably in a strange land and in hopeless servitude. And amongst these there must have been many women of gentle birth forced into menial office, or if young and fair to look upon, reserved for a worse fate—liable, when their masters were tired of them, to be sold into other hands. No wonder that Al Kindy, in his Apology, inveighs, with scathing denunciation, against the slavery practised in these Moslem crusades.
[343] Calansua, or helmet, worn by the captains of the Syrian army.
[344] Khâlid is no great favourite of Abbasside tradition. He belonged to a branch distant from that of the Prophet, which attached itself to the Omeyyads, of whom, in the struggle with Aly, Abdallah son of Khâlid was a staunch adherent.
The general outline of Khâlid’s case is clear, though there is variety in the details. According to some accounts, Omar returned to him all the property he had confiscated. Others say that, when pressed to do so, he said, ‘Nay, that be far from me. I am but the agent of the Moslems, and am bound to administer their property faithfully. I will never give it back.’
Tabari gives yet another account. Omar wrote to Abu Obeida commanding him to arraign Khâlid; but adding that if he would confess his guilt in the affair of Mâlik ibn Noweira, he would pardon him and restore him to his Government. Khâlid repaired for counsel to his sister Fâtima, then with her husband in Syria. She dissuaded him from confessing; for if he did so, it would only give Omar—who was determined on his ruin—a handle to depose him with disgrace. He bent down, and, kissing her forehead, said: ‘It is the truth, my sister.’ So he returned to Abu Obeida, and refused to make any confession. Thereupon Bilâl, as in the text, stripped off his kerchief, and so on, as in the text. At the conclusion of the trial Abu Obeida, by order of the Caliph, confiscated half of his property, even to his sandals—taking one and leaving the other.
[345] For an account of the persecution and martyrdom, avenged by the invasion of the Abyssinian Negus, see Life of Mahomet, vol. i. p. clxii. For the treaty of Mahomet, vol. iii. p. 299 (second edition, p. 158).
[346] The expulsion of the Jews is ordinarily assigned to the twentieth year of the Hegira; that of the Christians took place earlier. For the conquest of Kheibar, see Life of Mahomet, p. 395; and for the death-bed saying of the Prophet, ibid. p. 503. That the Peninsula should be wholly and exclusively Moslem was a sentiment so closely connected with the inspiration of Mahomet, when he declared in the Corân that he was ‘sent a prophet to the Arabs,’ and so forth, that it might well have recurred in the feverish delusions of his last illness. But whether or no, the utterance—whatever its purport—was evidently not taken at the time as an obligatory command. Had it been so, we may be sure that Abu Bekr would have made it his first concern to give effect to it, and no other reason would have been required to justify the act. As it is, various reasons are assigned for the expatriation of the Christians. First, we are told that they took usury greedily; next, that they fell to variance among themselves, and asked to be removed; lastly, that they were growing so strong that Omar became afraid of them. As regards the Jews, we are told that they were guilty of murder, and also that they attacked the Caliph’s son.