CAMPAIGN IN SYRIA.--TAKING OF DAMASCUS.
BATTLE OF FIHL.
A.H. XIV. A.D. 635.
[Sidenote: The Syrian forces repose on the Yermûk.]
After the terrible slaughter of the Romans at Wacûsa, we left the
Syrian forces reposing on the banks of the Yermûk. There, for some
time, they were engaged in burying the dead, tending the wounded, and
dividing the spoil.
[Sidenote: Syria east of the Jordan.]
The country around them, ‘the land beyond Jordan on the east,’ differed
from any they had previously known. To the south was the undulating
pasture-ground of the Belcâa, and again to the north of the Yermûk the
pasture-lands of Jaulân.[226] Between these two pastoral tracts lay
the hills and dales of Gilead, with their fields of wheat and barley,
dotted every here and there with clumps of the shady oak, olive,
and sycamore, and thickets of arbutus, myrtle, and oleander. It was
emphatically ‘a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains
and depths that spring out of valleys and hills.’ The landscape,
diversified with green slopes and glens, is in season gay with
carpeting of flowers and melody of birds. From heights not far north
of the Yermûk, beyond the green expanse around, might be descried the
blue waters of the Sea of Galilee sparkling in the west, and still
farther the snow-capped peaks of the Lebanon and Hermon--a strange
contrast to the endless sands and stony plains of the peninsula.[227]
Not less marked was the contrast with the land of Chaldæa. There the
marshy delta of the Euphrates displays an almost tropical luxuriance;
while above it the plains of Mesopotamia, with its network of canals,
were covered by vast mounds, the site of cities teeming with life in
the early cycles of the world, and strewn with fragments of pottery
and bricks stamped with strange devices--mysterious records of bygone
kingdoms. Here, on the contrary, the pride of the Byzantine empire was
yet alive. From the Jordan to the desert were colonial cities founded
by the Romans, boasting their churches, theatres, and forum. Even
the naval contests of the naumachia might be witnessed in the land
of Gilead. The country was populous and flourishing, inhabited by a
mongrel race half Arab and half Syrian, who aspired to the privileges
and aped the luxurious habits, without the chivalry and manliness,
of the Roman citizen. It was altogether a civilisation of forced and
exotic growth. No sooner was the western prop removed than the people
returned to their Bedouin life, true sons of the desert; the chariot
and waggon were banished for the camel; and nothing left of Roman rule
but columns and peristyles, causeways and aqueducts--great masses of
ruined masonry which still startle the traveller as if belonging to
another world. But, at the time we write of, the age of so-called
civilisation was still dominant there.
[Sidenote: Highway between Syria and Arabia.]
Such was the beautiful country, strange to the peninsular Arab, both
in its natural features and in its busy urban life, which was now
traversed by the Moslem armies, and soon became the beaten highway
between Syria and Arabia.
[Sidenote: Abu Obeida succeeds Khâlid. A.H. XIII. Sept. A.D. 634.]
After achieving the victory of Wacûsa, Khâlid delivered over to Abu
Obeida the despatch from the new Caliph, which (as we have related)
was put into his hands at the commencement of the action, and with it
surrendered the commission which he held from Abu Bekr.[228] The other
leaders were all confirmed in their commands by Omar.
[Sidenote: Khâlid loyally supports Abu Obeida.]
The affront put upon him by Omar did not damp the zeal or devotion
of Khâlid. He placed himself forthwith at the command of Abu Obeida,
who published with reluctance the order for his deposition.[229] Abu
Obeida knew full well the rare military genius of Khâlid; and, himself
of a mild and unwarlike turn, was wise and magnanimous enough to ask,
and as a rule implicitly to follow, his advice. Khâlid, nobly putting
aside his grievance, devoted his best energies to the cause; and, his
supersession notwithstanding, remained thus virtually the chief captain
of Islam in Syria.
The course of Moslem victory in Syria advanced with little let or
check. In Persia the struggle was not to save a limb, but life itself.
[Sidenote: Byzantine struggle in Syria faint-hearted.]Here it was
otherwise. Syria, indeed, contained the holy places and all that was
dearest to the Byzantine people as the cradle of their faith. But,
after all, it was, though fair and sacred, but an outlying province, of
which a cowardly, supine, and selfish court could without vital injury
afford the loss. There were, accordingly, no such mortal throes in
Syria as on the plains of Chaldæa.
[Sidenote: Abu Obeida advances on Damascus.]
Leaving a strong detachment on the Yermûk to keep communications open
with the south, the invading army resumed its march towards Damascus.
On the way, news reached them that the city had been reinforced, and
also that in Palestine the scattered fragments of the defeated army
had re-formed in the valley of the Jordan, thus threatening the Moslem
rear. The moment was critical, and Abu Obeida wrote for orders to the
Caliph. The command of Omar was to strike a decisive blow at Damascus.
The citadel of Syria gained, the rest was sure. Accordingly, a strong
column under Abul Aûr and other veteran leaders was sent back to hold
in check the enemy on the Jordan, while the main body advanced by the
military road to Damascus.
[Sidenote: Damascus.]
This city, founded before the days of Abraham,[230] enjoys the singular
pre-eminence of having survived, through all the vicissitudes of
dynasties and nations, the capital of Syria. The Ghûta, or great plain
on which it stands, is watered by the Barada and other streams issuing
from the Lebanon and adjoining mountain ranges; and the beautiful
groves and rich meadows around have given it (perhaps with a better
title than the delta of the Euphrates) the name of ‘the garden of the
world.’ An _entrepôt_ of commerce between the East and West, it
has from age to age, with varying fortune, been ever rich and populous.
The city wall, twenty feet high and fifteen broad, still displays in
many places stones of cyclopean size, which must have been venerable
ages even before our era. Turrets for defence are placed at stated
intervals, and over the gates and at other spots there are structures
to accommodate the garrison on duty. The Eastern gate still leads into
‘the street which is called Straight,’ as it did in the days when St.
Paul passed through it.[231] The Cathedral church of St. John the
Baptist rears its great dome, towering above the other buildings; and
besides it there were, at the time of the invasion, fifteen churches in
Damascus and its suburbs. The city, not long before, suffered severely
from the alternating fortunes of the Persian war; but it had now, in
great measure, recovered its prosperity.
Such was the capital of Syria, ‘the Queen of Cities,’ which--embedded
in groves and gardens, and hemmed in (excepting towards the eastern
desert) with distant but lofty mountains, some tipped with snow--now
burst on the gaze of the Arab warriors. One here and there amongst them
may perchance have visited it, trading to the north; but, as a whole,
the army had heard of it only by report; and in beauty, richness, and
repose, fancy could hardly have exceeded the scene which now lay before
them.
[Sidenote: The city invested. Shawwâl, A.H. XIII. December, A.D. 634.]
The Arab force was strong enough to invest the city. Abu Obeida pitched
his head-quarters opposite the Gate of Jâbia, on the western plain.
Khâlid was posted at the Eastern entrance,[232] where the gateway was
strengthened by the remains of an ancient temple. The other gates were
similarly guarded. Battering-rams and testudos were drawn up against
the walls; but every attempt at a breach of the massive defences
failed. At first the citizens, ignorant of the ardour and persistence
inspired by the faith of Mahomet, regarded the attack as a desultory
raid like many that had preceded it, and looked for succour. The city
lies two thousand feet above the sea, and the severity of the cold in
spring would drive away the Arab tribes, used to a more genial climate.
But months slipped by, and the host still hung obstinately around the
walls. The Emperor, indeed, from Hims, attempted a diversion; but Dzul
Kelâa, posted with his Himyarite horse to the north of the city, kept
them at bay; and Abu Obeida detached another column to cover the siege
from annoyance on the side of Palestine. The summer was coming on, and
no relief appeared. The Moslems, instead of retiring, pressed their
attack with increasing vigour; and the hopes of the Damascenes melted
away into despair.[233]
[Sidenote: Storm and capitulation. A.H. XIV. Summer, A.D. 635.]
On a certain day, we are told, the Roman Governor made feast to the
garrison to celebrate the birth of a son.[234] They ate and drank, and,
relaxing into merriment, began to quit their posts. Khâlid knew of the
expected feast, for nothing escaped his vigilance. ‘He neither himself
slumbered, nor suffered others to fall asleep.’ And so, reckoning upon
the season of revelry, he had settled with Abu Obeida to seize it as
the occasion for a general assault. The defences on Khâlid’s side
were by far the most formidable; the moat was deeper there, and the
walls stronger. The garrison, holding the spot to be impregnable, were
less on the alert than elsewhere; and in their negligence Khâlid found
his opportunity. In concert with certain daring spirits, his comrades
from Irâc, he planned an escalade. Ladders were got in readiness, and
scaling ropes with nooses to catch the projections of the castellated
wall. In the darkness preceding dawn, they stealthily crossed the
moat upon inflated skins;[235] then, casting up their tackle, they
caught the battlements. Cacâa, with another hero[236] from Irâc, was
the first to gain the summit. The way thus silently secured, others
scaled rapidly. Right and left they surprised the slumbering pickets
by a sudden rush, and put them to the sword. The gate from within was
forced open, and the appointed cry ‘_Allah Akbar!_’ resounded
from the walls to the expectant troops without. The Roman soldiery,
panic-struck, fled before their assailants; and now through the gateway
Khâlid’s column poured in, slaying and sacking all around. They had
already penetrated near to the centre of the city, when their progress
was brought to an unwelcome end. For on the other side a very different
scene was taking place. The Governor, seeing that resistance to an
assault apprehended from every quarter was hopeless, had issued from
the western gate, and already tendered his submission to Abu Obeida.
Terms were made upon the spot, and the capitulation signed. The gates
were thrown open, and the Moslem force, unopposed, kept streaming
in from the western camp. As they advanced, cries of despair and
appeals to stay the carnage met the ears of Abu Obeida, who was no
sooner apprised of what had transpired in the eastern quarter than
he sent orders to stay the onslaught. Khâlid remonstrated that the
city had been fairly carried by assault, and was at their mercy; but
in vain. Abu Obeida, juster and more clement, pointed to the treaty,
and insisted that its provisions should be fulfilled. Good faith was
the best as well as justest policy. The people were conciliated, and
throughout Syria the capitulation of Damascus became the type of
surrender.[237]
[Sidenote: Terms of capitulation.]
One half of all the property, both in money and buildings, private and
public, was by this capitulation surrendered to the conquerors. Besides
the taxes levied under Byzantine rule, the tribute of one dinar was
imposed on every male adult who did not embrace Islam, and a measure of
corn was taken from every field.[238] In this way the Arabs gained, not
only large spoil and a permanent revenue, without entirely alienating
the people, and even with a show of moderation, but obtained also
possession of buildings sufficient for their own accommodation and for
the conduct of public business. And so this beautiful city, ‘the Eye
of the East,’ passed from the grasp of Heraclius into the hands of the
Caliph, and became ‘the Eden of Islam.’
The churches of Damascus shared the common fate; they were equally
distributed between the Christians and the conquerors. [Sidenote:
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist turned into a Mosque.]The Cathedral
church of St. John the Baptist was treated differently. It was divided
into two parts--in one half the rites of the ancient faith were still
celebrated, and the gospel of Jesus read; in the other half, carefully
detached, the Corân was recited, and the service of Islam observed;
while from the dome the Muedzzin proclaimed daily the supremacy of
the Arabian prophet.[239] For seventy or eighty years the great
Cathedral continued thus to blend under one roof the symbols and the
practice of the two religions. That which was reasonable in the first
beginnings of Islam, however, became intolerable in the rapid advance
of arrogance and bigotry. One and another of the Caliphs sought, by the
offer of large payments, to obtain surrender of the entire Cathedral;
but in vain. At last Welîd, about the ninetieth year of the Hegira,
took the law into his own hands, and summarily ejected the Christian
worshippers. They complained against the injustice of the act, and Omar
II. listened to their reclamation. But the doctors of Islam declared
it impossible to restore to Christian worship a place once consecrated
by the Idzân and the prayers of the Faithful; and so at last the
Christians consented to take, instead, the churches of the city and
its suburbs which had been confiscated under the equal partition of
Abu Obeida. All that appeared Christian, therefore, in the style
or decoration of the Cathedral church, was now removed or defaced.
But this wonderful edifice retains to the present day marks of the
different religions to which it has been from time to time devoted. In
the massive foundations may be traced its origin as a pagan Temple;
these are surmounted by the beautiful architecture and embellishment
of Byzantine art; and over the great entrance may still be deciphered,
clear and uninjured, the grand prophecy of the Psalmist, which yet may
be realised in the worship of the Temple itself:--
THY KINGDOM, O CHRIST, IS A KINGDOM OF ALL AGES; AND THY
DOMINION IS FROM GENERATION
TO GENERATION.[240]
[Sidenote: Romans at Beisân held in check by Abul Aûr at Fihl. A.H.
XIV. Spring, A.D. 634.]
All through the protracted siege of Damascus, Abul Aûr kept watch over
his enemy in the Ghôr, or Valley of the Jordan, near to Fihl. This
city, the ancient Pella, was situated on the eastern slope of the
valley, six or seven miles below the outlet of the Lake of Tiberias.
Ruins still mark the site which is 600 feet above the river bed. The
gorge of the Jordan is here broad and fertile, and the stream at many
places fordable. Opposite Fihl the valley of Jezreel, branching off
from Esdräelon, that great battle-field of the world, issues into the
Ghôr. The broad opening is guarded on one side by the mountains of
Gilboa, the scene of Saul’s disaster, and on the other by the frowning
eminence of Beisân, to the walls of which the Philistines fastened the
body of that unfortunate monarch.[241] The mountain streams here run
along the valley, rendering it when neglected sodden and swampy.[242]
It was under the shadow of Beisân that the broken army of the Romans
took refuge, and here fresh supports from Heraclius joined them. To
secure their front, they dammed the streams, and so turned the whole
vale into a marsh. At first the Arabs chafed under the stratagem,
for their horses were disabled on the yielding ground. But they soon
learned patience, and discovered that the enemy had shut himself out
from the Ghôr, as well as from their attack. Himself securely posted,
his rear open to reinforcements, supplied in plenty by the fertile
vale of the Jordan, from which the Romans were cut off--Abul Aûr was
content to wait till the summer heat should dry up the quagmire; and
meanwhile his enemy, 80,000 strong, was held in check, if not virtually
blockaded.[243]
[Sidenote: Abu Obeida returns to attack Fihl. A.H. XIV. Summer, A.D.
634.[244]]
The summer was well advanced before the Arabs broke up their camp at
Damascus. They were eager to attack Heraclius at Hims; but Omar forbade
them to advance, so long as there was an army in their rear. Leaving,
therefore, Yezîd son of Abu Sofiân, with a garrison of Yemen levies,
as Governor of Damascus, Abu Obeida hastened back with the rest of
his army to Fihl. The province of the Jordan had been given by Omar in
command to Shorahbîl, and to him therefore Abu Obeida now committed
the chief conduct of the campaign which lay within his jurisdiction.
Khâlid led the van; Abu Obeida himself commanded one of the wings,
and Amru the other; the famous warrior Dhirâr directed the cavalry,
and Iyâdh the foot.[245] Retracing their steps, they took the highway
to Palestine, and, recrossing the Yermûk near where it falls into the
Jordan by the hot springs of Omm Keis (or Gadara), marched down the
valley of the Ghôr, and encamped under Fihl. Abul Aûr, who had held
the enemy in check for so long a time, was now detached on a similar
duty towards Tiberias, to prevent diversion from that quarter. The main
army, taking his place, sat before Beisân, and continued patiently its
blockade.
[Sidenote: Battle of Fihl.]
Mistaking inaction for remissness, and themselves reduced to straits,
the Byzantine army, on a certain morning, thought to fall upon the
Arabs unawares. They little knew the vigilance of Shorahbîl, who
night and day was on the watch ready for action. Fetching a circuit,
the Romans suddenly appeared on the Moslem flank. They met a warm
reception, and there ensued a battle as fierce and obstinate as any
that had yet taken place. All day the Romans held their ground; but
by nightfall the impetuosity of the Arabs had its way. Sacalâr, the
Byzantine captain, fell, and his army broke and fled. The greater part,
caught in the marsh, there met their fate; and few escaped the sword.
‘Thus the Lord wrought for his people,’ writes the pious crusader;
‘and the morass which we thought a curse turned in His hands into a
blessing.’ And so the plain of Esdraelon again looked down upon another
great and sanguinary conflict, which, following on the defeat of
Wacûsa, decided for many a long century the fate of Syria.
The loss of the Mussulmans was comparatively small. The booty was
immense, and served to sharpen the Arab appetite for further victory.
[Sidenote: Khâlid’s contingent sent back to Irâc.]
No enemy now was left in sight. Omar, therefore, remembering the last
behest of Abu Bekr, that when the Lord gave victory in Syria the
contingent of Khâlid should be sent to Irâc, gave orders accordingly.
Its ranks, thinned by the fighting they had undergone, were before
the march made up to their former strength by transfer of volunteers
from the Syrian army. Thus recruited, the contingent (under command,
not now of Khâlid, but of Hâshim, son of Otba) recrossed the desert
just in time to take part in the great battle of Câdesîya. Abu Obeida,
with Khâlid and other chiefs of note, returned to Damascus. Shorahbîl
and Amru were left to reduce to order the province of the Jordan.
[Sidenote: Province of Jordan reduced.]The task was easy. The fire of
patriotism had never burned brightly anywhere in Syria; and what there
might have been was now extinguished by the listless cowardice of the
Byzantine Court. To the Bedouin class, weary of Roman trammels, the
prospect of an Arabian rule was far from unwelcome. Neither were the
Jews and Samaritans unfavourable to the invaders; indeed, we find them
not infrequently giving aid and information to the enemy. Even the
Christians cared little for the maintenance of a government which by
courtly and ecclesiastical intolerance had done its best to alienate
their affection.
[Sidenote: Progress east of the Jordan,]
Beisân for some time held out; but the garrison, when their sallies
had been repeatedly repulsed with slaughter, at last capitulated.
Tiberias followed its example, and both obtained the terms of Damascus.
Adzraât,[246] Ammân, Jerash, Maâb, and Bostra, all tendered their
submission. And so the whole tract from the Jordan eastward to the
Haurân and the desert, was brought under control, and garrisons were
distributed throughout the leading towns.
[Sidenote: and in Central Syria.]
Yezîd extended similarly his authority from Damascus towards the
desert as far as Tadmor. Westward he deputed his brother Muâvia, who,
meeting little opposition, reduced Sidon and Beyrût, and pushed his
conquests as far north as Arca.[247] Damascus itself, largely occupied
by Arabs, quickly assumed the garb of a Moslem city. The Byzantine
power and influence lingered longer on the coast; and once and again,
from seaward, they retook what the Arabs had gained. It was not,
indeed, until the Mussulmans began to cope with the naval forces of the
Mediterranean, that their authority was riveted along the littoral, as
it had long been in the interior.
[Sidenote: Bareness of Syrian tradition.]
The conquests of Syria have reached us, as I have before said, in a
form vague and most perfunctory. With the court of Damascus, its early
local traditions almost entirely disappeared; while those of the East
preserved by the learned coteries of Kûfa, Bussora, and Baghdad, alone
have reached us with any fulness and accuracy. In this we may see a
reason for the comparative bareness of tradition in respect of the
early history of Damascus and the rest of Syria under Moslem rule.
Leaving for the present Abu Obeida and Khâlid to make their advance on
Hims, we must return again to stirring scenes on the plains of Chaldæa.