The patriarch Sophronius negotiated without hope of earthly aid, and Obeidah, to save the Holy City, the cradle of prophets, from being desecrated by blood-shedding, yielded to the Christian wish that the chalif in person should be asked to receive the keys of the city, and regulate the conditions of surrender. And in 637 Chalif Omar came from Medina. As the Commander of the Faithful entered the city, he rode on a camel, clothed like the poorest Bedouin, and carrying on the same rough beast a sack of dates, rice, and bruised wheat or maize, also a water-skin, and a large wooden platter, on which he took his food with his companions. The terms of capitulation which he granted to the patriarch remained for long a standard to the Moslem in the like cases. First of all was the poll tax imposed by the Koran. The inhabitants to be protected and secured in life and property; their churches not to be pulled down, nor used by any but themselves. The Christians duly to pay tribute; to build no new churches [pg 123] either in the city or country; not to prevent Moslim by night or day from entering the churches. Their doors to be always open to travellers. The Christian to whom a traveller comes, shall entertain him three days gratis. Christians shall say nothing against the Koran. Shall prevent no one becoming Moslem. Shall show honour to Moslim. Shall not wear garments, or shoes, or turbans, like theirs. Shall not divide their hair like them. Shall not bear surnames like them. Shall not ride on saddles. Shall bear no arms, nor Arabic writing on their seals, nor give away wine, nor sell it. They shall wear the same kind of dress everywhere, and that with a girdle. They may have no slave who has served a Moslem. No crosses on the churches; nor ring bells, but only strike them.
The chalif Omar caused himself to be led into all the holy places in the garb of a pilgrim by the patriarch Sophronius, even to the church of the Resurrection. There he placed himself on the floor, and the patriarch was most anxious lest he should practise his own acts of devotion there. With breaking heart the patriarch quoted to those around him the words of Daniel, “The abomination of desolation in the temple”.
Twelve hundred and fifty years have borne witness to the truth of that sorrowful word, and still, “the desolation continues even to the end,”[64] and the soldier of the false prophet keeps order among Christians before the sepulchre of their Lord.
Hardly could the chalif Omar be induced to put off [pg 124] his rough garment long enough for it to be washed, and to take another. But when the time of Moslem prayer came, he would not say it in the church, lest the Moslim should seize a church in which their chalif had prayed, but he went to the steps of the eastern portion of Constantine's church and prayed there. He resolved to build a mosque on the spot where Jacob had seen in vision the ladder, or on which the temple of Solomon stood. He gave a hand himself to sweep away the rubbish from it. The structure, built in haste, disappeared suddenly. Theophanes relates that Omar was much confused at the disappearance of his new mosque. Some Jewish teachers came to him and said that the structure would only remain if the cross on Mount Calvary, not that on the Mount of Olives, were removed. Omar did what these men suggested. Some of his fanatics, in spite of the compact, broke all the public crosses, destroyed holy images, attacked various churches and chapels. He gave a special writing to protect the church at Bethlehem wherein he had prayed, but the Moslim afterwards took possession of this church and of the portico at Jerusalem, and made them mosques.
Omar returned to Medina. His armies received command to take Ctesiphon, Aleppo, Antioch. In the summer of 638, Heraclius retired from Antioch to Constantinople, and as he left, says Abulfeda, cried out, “Farewell, Syria, farewell for ever”. When Antioch in August, 638, surrendered, Mesopotamia as well as Syria fell into the hands of Omar, and all [pg 125] Roman land up to the Taurus belonged to the chalif, no imperial force could meet him any longer in the field. Egypt and Persia were open to him.
It was the year when Heraclius published the Ecthesis at Rome. In three years more came the doom of Egypt. Amrou was one of the most valiant and able among the generals of Omar. He asked for leave to attack Egypt, and meanwhile marched to its borders. When the chalif's answer came, he first passed the borders, and then opened it. He found written, “If this letter reaches thee before thou treadest the soil of Egypt, go back; if thou art already on it, go forward”. Amrou went on. Battles he fought, especially at Babylon, near Cairo. But the Copts throughout helped him, and the Greek forces were beaten.[65] Amrou had travelled as a merchant in Egypt, and knew the dispositions of its inhabitants, and that the vast majority were so fervent in the Eutychean heresy that they were inclined to look with favour on the new Mohammedan unity of the Godhead, rather than to defend their country against the Saracenic invasion for the good of the hated Melchites, and their emperor at Constantinople. Omar sent Amrou a reinforcement of 12,000 men, and the Copts, being monophysites, made peace with the Arabs, and promised the tribute of a moderate poll tax of two drachmas, from which old men, women, and children, were exempt. There are said to have been six millions to pay this tax.
To Mukankas, a Copt, the governor under Heraclius, [pg 126] his spies reported the life of the Arabs in the camp of Amrou. “We were among men to whom death is dearer than life; who trouble themselves little about earthly greatness or worldly enjoyments. They sit on the ground, and eat kneeling; their commander is in no way distinguished from the rest. Especially they do not distinguish between great and little, nor between masters and slaves. When the time of prayer comes, no one remains behind. Each washes himself and prays with the deepest devotion.” To the reproaches of Heraclius his governor, Mukankas, answered: “It is true the foe is not near so numerous as we are, but one Mussulman outweighs a hundred of us. They yearn after martyrdom, since it leads to paradise, but we hang upon life and its joys, and fear death.” The Copts in general accepted the terms made by Mukankas; the Greeks did not. At length Amrou, after four engagements, in which the Copts assisted him with provisions and the building of bridges, advanced upon Alexandria, whither the Greeks had retired.
Alexandria is said to have been besieged during fourteen months, and to have cost the lives of 23,000 Arabs. It was never cut off by sea from assistance. The Arabs had neither besieging engines nor a fleet. But Heraclius, who was dying of dropsy, instead of sending a fleet to save the last hold which he had upon Egypt, sent a bishop to make terms with Amrou for his retirement. “Bishop,” said the Saracen leader, “do you see that obelisk? When you have swallowed it I will retire from Alexandria.” The city fell in 640, and since Omar had [pg 127] the library of the Persian monarchs at Ctesiphon thrown into the Tigris, there is no reason to doubt the fact recorded that he fed the 4000 baths of Alexandria during six months with the treasures of Greek literature. An uninterrupted peace since the destruction of the Serapeium, 240 years before, had allowed that city in the world which was most devoted to literature and the richest in commerce ample time to collect the greatest of libraries. The double destruction suits exactly the character given to Chalif Omar by Arab historians.
Amrou was not allowed, by Omar's prudence, to live as governor of Egypt at Alexandria. Fostat—that is, the Tent—where he had dwelt during his siege of Babylon, developed from being the seat of his government to the present Cairo. But to the west Amrou extended the Saracen dominion over Barca and Tripolis.
Omar reigned ten years, a Chalif at whose words of rebuke his strongest commanders quailed, and he ruled a kingdom which he stretched in these ten years from Tripolis to the Indus; from the Caspian Sea to the Cataracts of the Nile. He destroyed the Sassanide empire; and the sword of Mohammed, wielded by his second chalif, cut in two the empire of Heraclius. With the loss of Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, the successor of Constantine was reduced to shelter himself behind the walls of Byzantium from the Saracen host, which perpetually plundered his provinces from the Bosphorus to Mount Taurus. During the Roman dominion of many hundred years that vast territory had been in climate, as Herodotus a thousand years before [pg 128] had said of it, the garden of the earth. It had, further, been studded with cities rich in monuments of Greek civilisation. Afterwards these came to be ruled by bishops, many of whom descended from the preaching of St. Peter and St. Paul. Now all this territory lived in anguish at the thought of Moslem incursion. Only the invention of the Greek fire, kept a secret, saved Byzantium itself from suffering in the latter half of the seventh century the doom which fell upon it in the fifteenth.