Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/86

 633] now established; and the citizens might hear the cry of the Muëzzin, as five times a day, beginning with the earliest dawn, it resounded from the adjacent camp. Khālid celebrated his success in a special Service of Victory. The occasion was memorable. Clad in a flowing robe girt loosely about the neck, he turned, when prayers were ended, to the assembly and thus extolled their bravery: "In the field of Mūta, when fighting with the Greeks, nine swords were broken in my hand. But I met not any there to match the foes ye have encountered here; and of these none more valiant than the men of Ulleis." The early campaign in Al-ʿIrāḳ, indeed, is surrounded by tradition with a special halo; for the loss on the Muslim side had not hitherto been great, and the fighting here could hardly have compared with that of many a well-contested field in the Prophet's time.

While Al-Ḥīra was left in the hands of its chief men, summary rule was set up over the adjacent country. The Dihḳāns—great landholders and imperial taxgatherers—had been waiting upon fortune. Seeing now that Khālid carried everything before him, many began to tender submission and enter into engagements for the revenue. Abu Bekr had wisely enjoined that the fellāḥin should be maintained in possession, and their rights as occupiers of the soil respected. The demand remained unchanged, with the addition only of a light poll-tax. In other respects, the terms, made with the consent and approval of the army, corresponded with those of Al-Ḥīra. Holding their ancestral faith, the people became dhimmīs, or protected dependants. Khālid undertook