The Chaliphate - Muir - The Search For Mecca

130 'OMAR [chap. XVII.
AM. 15. Damascus was again in their hands in the same month in
wliich the battle was fought, exactly twelve months after
its first capture. As the Greeks retired, the country fell into
the hands of the Arabs so naturally that this re-conquest is
scarcely mentioned. But Khalid's occupation in Syria was
gone. The country had been as good as won, and it was
now a question of readjusting the relations of the governed to
their new rulers, of fostering the resources of the country,
and encouraging agriculture. The military chief had to
give place to the civil functionary; the sword to the pen;
Khalid to Abu 'Obeida. There is no occasion to seek for
any ulterior motives which might lead 'Omar to replace
Khalid by Abu 'Obeida. Least of all can personal dislike
have influenced him. 'Omar was too great for that. He
was, however, scrupulous to a fault in the management of
public money, and Khalid appears to have grown rich at
the expense of the State. This might have led 'Omar to
recall him to Medina; but the truth was, the soldiers of
Al-'Irak had done the work for which they had been
transferred to Syria. They were now required in the
country of the two rivers, and were ordered home ; and
Khalid's lot was naturally theirs.
Completion Khalid, however, remained with Abu 'Obeida. 'Amr
Con ue t
returned to Palestine, and set about the siege of Jerusalem,
or as it was then called Aelia ; Shurahbll returned to the
Jordan and took Acca (Acre), Tyre, and Sepphoris. Vezld
with his brother Mu'awiya captured Saida (Sidon), 'Irka,
Jubeil, and Beyrout, on the sea-coast of the Damascus
province ;
whilst Abu 'Obeida pushed northwards by Baalbek,
Emesa, and Kinnasrin (Chalcis), to Aleppo and Antioch.
Khalid set out with him, but soon left him in order to report
himself at Medina; and Abu 'Obeida remained as governor
of the whole of Syria, the northern limit of his conquests
being a line drawn from Antioch due east to the Euphrates,
and the southern the confines of Arabia and Egypt. It
was not, however, until the Muslim rulers had begun to
cope with the naval forces of the Mediterranean that their
authority was established beyond dispute along the seaboard,
as it had long been in the interior.