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 capitulated, agreeing to pay poll-tax or evacuate the places. Most of them left for the Byzantine Empire, Mesopotamia and the village of Jisr Manbij [or Ḳalʿat an-Najm]. At this time there was no bridge [Ar. jisr]. It was first put up for the summer expeditions in the days of ʿUthmân ibn-ʿAffân. Others claim that it is of ancient origin.

Abu-ʿUbaidah stationed in Bâlis a body of fighting men and settled in the city some Arabs, who were in Syria and who, after the advent of the Moslems to Syria, had accepted Islâm, together with others who were not among the forces sent to the frontiers, but who had emigrated from the deserts and belonged to the Ḳais tribe. In Ḳâṣirîn, he settled others who, either themselves or their descendants, refused to stay in it. Abu-ʿUbaidah reached as far as the Euphrates and then returned to Palestine.

. Bâlis and the villages attached to it on its upper, middle, and lower extremities were tithe-lands watered only by rain. When Maslamah ibn-ʿAbd-al-Malik ibn-Marwân led an expedition against the Greeks from the side of the Mesopotamian frontier fortresses, he camped at Bâlis whose inhabitants, together with those of Buwailis, Ḳâṣirîn, ʿÂbidîn, and Ṣiffin (which were villages attached to Bâlis) came to him, together with the inhabitants of the upper extremity, and they all asked him to dig for them a canal from the Euphrates to irrigate their land, agreeing to offer him one-third of the produce of the land, after taking away the usual tithe for the government. Maslamah consented and dug the canal called Nahr Maslamah; and the people lived up to their promise. Moreover, Maslamah repaired and strengthened the city wall. According to others, Maslamah himself started the idea and proposed the terms.