Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/232

 645–56] to be administered by him. Excepting raids of little import, Syria had for some time enjoyed rest, when suddenly in the second year of ʿOthmān's caliphate, Muʿāwiya was startled by the approach of an army from Asia Minor, which he had not the means to oppose. Help was ordered from the eastern provinces, and 8000 volunteers soon joined the Syrian army. Thus reinforced, the Arabs repulsed the Byzantine attack. Following up the success, they overran Asia Minor, and passing through Armenia, reached Ṭabaristān, thus forming a junction with their comrades, on the eastern shore of the Caspian. Then turning north, they marched as far as Tiflis, and reached even to the Black Sea. Thereafter hostilities with the Greeks were renewed every summer, and eventually, aided by naval expeditions from the ports of Africa, the Syrian generals pushed forward their conquests in the Levant and Asia Minor, strengthened their border, and enlarged their coasts. A few years before the death of ʿOthmān, Muʿāwiya, accompanied by his Bedawi wife, Meisūn, headed one of these expeditions along the coast to the very precincts of Constantinople; and returning by ʿAmmūriya (Amorion), destroyed many fortresses on the way.

In Africa, I have already noticed the desperate attack made early in this reign on Alexandria from seaward; the Byzantine forces on that occasion actually regained possession of the City, but were shortly after driven out by ʿAmr; and against the Muslim power in Egypt no further attack was for the present made. Farther to the west, however, the Byzantine arms remained long in force; and along the shores washed by the Mediterranean strong Arab columns were still actively engaged against them. Among the chiefs who had joined the Egyptian army was ʿAbdallah ibn Saʿd ibn abi Sarḥ, already noticed as the foster-brother of ʿOthmān. He bore no enviable reputation in Islām. Employed by Moḥammad to record his revelations, he had proved unfaithful to the trust; and on the capture of Mecca, was by the Prophet proscribed from the general amnesty, and only at the intercession of ʿOthmān escaped death. An able administrator, he was appointed by ʿOmar to the government of Upper Egypt, when he advanced on Nubia. But some years after, he fell out with ʿAmr, in whom was