st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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THE MAHOMETAN RULE IN SYRIA. 21
such men might be capricious and tyrannical rulers,
might leave their soldiers unpaid, their lands untilled,
their subjects the prey of rapacious officials but
Jews or Christians, as such, were not likely to suffer
so much comparatively as under masters of stricter
orthodoxy. In later times indeed Damascus has been
notorious for the intolerance of its Mussulman popu
lation. But under the free-thinking caliphs of the
house of Omeiyah, Christians were often found
occupying important posts. Intermarriages were
not unknown. The mother of Khalid ibn Abdallah,
whom Hisham had appointed governor of Irak, was
a Christian. Akhtal, the court poet of Abd al Malek,
who was led in a robe of honour through the streets
of Damascus, with a herald proclaiming
:
the poet of the Commander of the Faithful !
greatest bard among the Arabs !
Behold
the
was also a Christian.
It was not until the reign of the same caliph that
even the state records were ordered to be kept in
Arabic. Before that time the records of Irak had
been kept in Persian, those of Syria in Creek. The
value of the knowledge derived by Western Europe
from the Saracens has been often over-estimated.
Most of the learning they gained was in fact picked
up from the conquered races. The Arabs have
rendered a lasting service to mankind by acting for
a time as the depositories of science ;
but they
could not originate. They could but transmit what
they had received. Mere Bedouins of the desert,"
writes Major Osborn, 1
they found themselves all at
once the masters of vast countries with everything to
1
Osborn, p. 93.