Ali was not present at this election, and when he heard the news was not well pleased, having hoped that the choice would have fallen on himself. Abu Bekr sent Omar to Fatima’s house, where Ali and some of his friends were, with orders to compel them by force to come in and do fealty to him, if they would not be persuaded by fair means. Omar was just going to fire the house, when Fatima asked him what he meant. He told her that he would certainly burn the house down unless they would be content to do as the rest of the people had done. Upon which Ali came forth and went to Abu Bekr, and acknowledged his sovereignty.
Abu Bekr being thus settled in his new government, had work enough to maintain it; for the Mohammedan religion had not as yet taken such deep root in the hearts of men but that they would very willingly have shaken it off had they known how. Accordingly the Arabians, a people of a restless and turbulent disposition, did not neglect the opportunity of rebelling, which they thought was fairly offered them by the death of Mohammed. Immediately taking up arms, they refused to pay the usual tribute, tithes, and alms, and no longer observed the rites and customs which had been imposed upon them by Mohammed.
[632-633 A.D.]
Abu Bekr sent Khalid ben Walid, with an army of forty-five hundred men, who, having routed them in a set battle, brought off a great deal of plunder, and made slaves of their children.
Khalid was the best general of his age, and it was chiefly to his courage and conduct that the Saracens owed the subduing of the rebels, the conquest of Syria, and the establishment of their religion and polity. His love and tenderness towards his own soldiers were only equalled by his hatred and aversion to the enemies of the Mohammedan religion. Of both he has given the most signal instances. To those who, having embraced the Mohammedan religion, afterwards apostatised, he was an irreconcilable and implacable foe; nor would he spare them, though they evinced the greatest signs of unfeigned repentance. For his great valour, the Arabs called him “the Sword of God”; which surname of his was known also to his enemies, and is mentioned as well by Greek as Arab authors.
About this time several persons, perceiving the success and prosperity of Mohammed and his followers, set up also for prophets too, in hope of meeting the like good fortune, and making themselves eminent in the world. Such were Aswad al-Ansi and Tulaihah ben Khuwailid, with several others, whose attempts however quickly came to nothing. But the most considerable of these impostors was Musailima, who had been the rival of Mohammed even in his life-time, and trumped up a book in imitation of the Koran. He had now gathered together a very considerable body of men in Yemen, a province of Arabia, and began to be so formidable that the Mussulmans began to feel alarmed at his growing greatness.
It is strange and surprising to consider from how mean and contemptible beginnings the greatest things have been raised in a short time. Of this the Saracenic empire is a remarkable instance. For if we look back but eleven years, we shall see how Mohammed, unable to support his cause, routed and oppressed by the powerful party of the Koreishites at Mecca, fled with a few desponding followers to Medina to preserve his life no less than his imposture. And now, within so short a period, we find the undertakings of his successor prospering beyond expectation, and making him the terror of all his neighbours; and the Saracens in a capacity not only to keep possession of their own peninsula of Arabia, but to extend their arms over larger territories than ever were subject to the Romans themselves. Whilst they were thus employed in Arabia, they were little regarded by the Grecian emperor, who awoke too late to a sense of their formidable power, when he saw them pouring in upon them like a torrent, and driving all before them. The proud Persian, too, who so very lately had been domineering in Syria, and sacked Jerusalem and Damascus, must be forced not only to part with his own dominions, but also to submit his neck to the Saracenic yoke. It may be reasonably supposed that, had the Grecian empire been in the flourishing condition it formerly was, the Saracens might have been checked at least, if not entirely extinguished. But besides that the western part of the empire had been rent from it by the barbarous Goths, the eastern also had received so many shocks from the Huns on the one side, and the Persians on the other, that it was not in a situation to stem the fury of this powerful invasion. Heraclius, indeed, was a prince of admirable courage and conduct, and did all that was possible to restore the discipline of the army, and was very successful against the Persians, not only driving them out of his own dominions, but even wresting from them a part of their own territories. But the empire seemed to labour under an incurable disease, and to be wounded in its very vitals. No time could have been more fatally adverse to its maintenance, nor more favourable to the enterprises of the Saracens.
Abu Bekr had now set affairs at home in pretty good order. The apostates who upon the death of Mohammed had revolted to the idolatry in which they were born and bred, were again reduced to subjection. The forces of Musailima, the false prophet, being dispersed and himself killed, there was now little or nothing left to be done in Arabia. For though there were a great many Christian Arabs, as particularly the tribe of Ghassan, yet they were generally employed in the service of the Greek emperor. The next business, therefore, that the caliph had to do, pursuant to the tenor of his religion, was to make war upon his neighbours, for the propagation of the truth (for so they call their superstition), and compel them either to become Mohammedans or tributaries. For their prophet Mohammed had given them a commission of a very large, nay, unlimited extent, to fight, viz., till all the people were of his religion. The wars which are entered upon in obedience to this command, they call holy wars, with no greater absurdity than we ourselves give the same title to that which was once undertaken against them by Europeans. With this religious object, Abu Bekr sent at this time a force under Khalid into Irak or Babylonia; but his greatest longing was after Syria, which delicious, pleasant, and fruitful country being near to Arabia, seemed to lie very conveniently for him.
[633-634 A.D.]
The news of his preparation quickly came to the ears of the emperor Heraclius, who despatched a force with all possible speed to check the advance of the Saracens, but with ill success; for the general, with twelve hundred of his men, was killed upon the field of the battle, and the rest routed, the Arabs losing only 120 men. A number of skirmishes followed, in most of which the Christians came off the worst.b
Damascus was besieged for months, and all sorties of the inhabitants crushed with heavy slaughter. Heraclius, at Antioch, sent a great army under Werdan to its relief. Khalid, raising the siege, went to meet it.a
Damascus
The two armies presently came within sight of each other, and the confidence of the Saracens was somewhat checked, when they perceived the strength of the emperor’s forces, which amounted to no less than seventy thousand. Those who had been in Persia, and seen the vast armies of Chosroes, confessed that they had never beheld an enemy equal to the present, either in number or military preparation. On the second morning they moved forward, and engaged in all parts with all imaginable vigour. The fight, or rather the slaughter, continued till evening. The Christian army was entirely routed and defeated. The Saracens killed that day fifty thousand men. Those that escaped fled, some of them to Cæsarea, others to Damascus, and some to Antioch. The Saracens took plunder of inestimable value, and a great many banners, and crosses made of gold and silver, precious stones, silver and gold chains, rich clothes, and arms without number; which Khalid said he would not divide until Damascus was taken.