After Abu O’baydah B. Jurrâh had assumed the duties of commander-in-chief, Khâled B. Alwolyd and all the other Amirs applied themselves so diligently and strenuously to the siege of Damascus that the garrison of the fortress was in great distress. After a consultation the Governor of Damascus marched from the city with his brave army and drew it out in lines opposite to the adherents of Islâm. The Musalmâns fought and resisted during an hour, whereon they turned their backs for the sake of convenience and fled. The opponents, imagining that the victory-boding army had returned to its own encampment, and would remain there, pursued it; but the army of Islâm, having marched a short distance, returned, and a terrible conflict ensued between the antagonists. During the fight Ssafuwân B. Mua’ttal Salmy happened to perceive one of the caitiffs, who wore a gilded helmet on his head and a valuable cuirass on his breast. Ssafuwân, watching his opportunity, attacked the man, wounded him with his spear, and, lifting him from the saddle, prostrated him on the ground. Hereon, the wife of this man, being armed, attacked Ssafuwân furiously; but when he perceived his assailant to be a woman, he said to himself, ‘What man is he who is less than a woman?’ and, drawing his sword, intended to defend himself, whereon the woman, seized by fright, returned to her lines. Ssafuwân thereon alighted from his charger, and, depriving her husband of his garments as well as of his arms, went back to the ranks. The army of Islâm, encouraged by the bravery of Ssafuwân, forthwith made an onslaught upon the foe, and, repeating it several times, killed so many that the calculator of imagination would fail to ascertain the number of the people slain on that occasion, confessing his inability to do so. Those who had escaped the sword fled from the battle-field as they best could and threw themselves into the fortress of Damascus, the victorious army pursuing the fugitives till it reached the fortress and continued the siege with the utmost alacrity. In those days the price of grain rose enormously in the city.
There was such a famine in Damascus
That friends forgot to love each other.*
When the siege had lasted a considerable time, the inhabitants of Damascus sent a message to Heraclius, who was then in Antioch, to the following purport: ‘It is nearly a year since the Arab army is closely besieging us, and has reduced us to a state of famine and of misery. We have sallied forth several times from the city, have fought and striven to preserve our honour, but altogether in vain. If his exalted majesty be favourably inclined towards this country, let him make haste to aid it, because we have become so exhausted that we possess no strength; if, on the contrary, delay takes place in this matter, we shall be under the necessity of concluding peace with our foes, because, after having granted us quarter, it will be possible to satisfy them with little.’ The dark-minded Heraclius thereon sent the following reply to the beleaguered inhabitants of Damascus: ‘Your letter has been received and the contents thereof have become known. You are to be strenuous in defending the town, and to ward off the Arabs as much as possible till I arrive and relieve you with an army which I am fitting out. Be aware that the Arabs do not keep their promises, and do not act according to what they have spoken. Be not deceived by their speeches, because after having concluded peace with you and taken possession of the city, they will plunder all your property, and will carry off your families into captivity; therefore you are not to surrender the fortress to them, but to wait for my arrival to aid you.’ When the inhabitants of Damascus had perused the letter of the Qayssar, they were tranquillized and glad. They defended the place for some time longer, passing their days and nights in expectation of relief; but when they perceived the force and courage of the army of Islâm augmenting day by day, and there were no hopes of aid from the Qayssar, the Governor of Damascus sent a number of respectable men to sue for peace. A’bu O’baydah considered it proper to assent to the demand, whereon he wrote a treaty of peace, to which also the simple and the gentle of the town affixed their signatures, after they had consented to pay him one hundred thousand gold dinârs; and, moreover, every male assented to pay annually a capitation tax of four, and every female of two dinârs. The money having been paid and the keys of the gates surrendered to the army of Islâm, Abu O’baydah despatched one-fifth of the sum to Madinah, and informed O’mar the Amir of the Faithful of the glorious victory he had gained, but distributed the rest of the money among the troops. After he had conquered Damascus, Abu O’baydah sent A’mru B. A´ass with troops to the country of Falesttyn [Palestine] and orders to conclude peace if the inhabitants were so inclined, but in the contrary case to pillage them. A’mru B. A´ass acted as he had been commanded, but when the people of that country had heard that Damascus had with the surrounding districts fallen under the sway of the Musalmâns they were sore afraid, congregated in one spot, and made preparations for resistance and war. They despatched couriers to Antioch asking the Qayssar to send them reinforcements, whereon he despatched twenty thousand cavalry, who were lancers, to Falesttyn, who arrived there after duly traversing the distance. When A’mru B. A´ass was informed of the arrival of these troops, as well as that twenty thousand more cavalry of the enemy had been concentrated at Ba’lbek and would join the lancers, he became pensive, and informed Abu O’baydah in a letter of this state of affairs.