Page:William Muir, Thomas Hunter Weir - The Caliphate; Its Rise, Decline, and Fall (1915).djvu/94

 633–4] after another on the plain of the Jurf at a little distance from Medīna on the track leading to the North; and as each was ready to march the Caliph went on foot by the side of its mounted leader, and gave him thus his farewell commands:—

"Men," he would say, “I have ten orders to give you, which you must observe loyally: Deceive none and steal from none; betray none and mutilate none; kill no child, nor woman, nor aged man; neither bark nor burn the date palms; cut not down fruit trees nor destroy crops; slaughter not flocks, cattle, nor camels except for food. You will fall in with some men with shaven crowns; smite them thereon with the sword. You will also meet with men living in cells; leave them alone in that to which they have devoted themselves."

Instructions of a more general character were given to the leader,—to promise good government to the invaded people, and to keep his promise; not to say much at a time, and always to be straightforward; to respect ambassadors, but not to detain them long lest they became spies; to preserve secrecy where necessary; to make the round of sentinels by night and by day; and never to be slack.

The entrance of the Muslims into Syria was much facilitated by a circumstance which had occurred shortly before. The Byzantine Emperor had been in the habit of remitting to the Arab tribes in the south of Palestine an annual subsidy; but from motives of economy, rendered necessary by the expenses incurred in the war with Persia, this had but lately been withdrawn. The tribes, therefore, considered themselves free from their allegiance and threw in ‘their lot with the invaders. The people of Syria, too, apart from the religious persecution to which they had been subjected, suffered from increased taxation, and in consequence remained passive spectators of the invasion of their country, hoping more, indeed, from an occupation by the Arabs, who abstained from pillage, and whose rule