Peter's Rock in Mohammed's Flood, from St. Gregory the Great to St. Leo III

The fifty years which run from 628 to 678 contain the various acts of one prolonged attempt by the Byzantine emperors to enforce their religious despotism on the Pope in the shape of the Monothelite heresy. The two standard-bearers of the heresy are two patriarchs, Sergius at Constantinople, and Cyrus at Alexandria. Precisely at this time the Mohammedan power appears upon the scene. While Heraclius is brooding over the compromise of Sergius for reuniting an empire dislocated by heresy, Mohammed is purposing the foundation of an empire resting on material force. While Heraclius is assuming the right to define the doctrine of the Church in virtue of his imperial power, Mohammed is constructing a claim to prophetic rank from which imperial power itself shall emanate. The Mohammedan claim is the exact antithesis of the Byzantine usurpation: the rise of a false prophet punishes the attempt among Christians to rule the spiritual by the civil power.

Upon the death of Mohammed in 632, his companions took counsel together and elected Abu Bekr to carry on the dominion based upon religion which Mohammed had invented. They gave him the title of “Chalif of God's Apostle”. As the vicar of the new prophet, he was to exert the absolute power which belonged to the prophet's office, and of which the civil sovereignty was an offshoot. This power was rooted in the belief that Mohammed had been sent by God. The quality therefore of every act exercised by the first chalif, and by every successor, depended on the truth of such a mission.

By the choice of Abu Bekr, father of Aischa, the favourite wife of Mohammed, it was resolved that the succession to the chalifate should be elective, not hereditary. The most stirring principle of the new power was that everyone who died for its extension, which was called the Holy War, should pass at once to paradise. Paradise had been drawn by Mohammed after his own sensual imagination to suit the taste of a most sensual people. The empire sought by Mohammed and his followers was to be imposed by force. Abu Bekr stirred up the sons of the desert to this Holy War, proclaiming that he who fought for God's cause should have 700 good works counted for each step, 700 honours allotted to him, and 700 sins forgiven.

Abu Bekr held the chalifate but two years, dying in 634 at the age of 63 years. But at the very time of his death the pearl of Syria, Damascus, fell into the hands of his generals, Amrou and Khaled. From Medina the city of the prophet, and the seat of the chalif, he had sent forth three armies. Moseilama, a prophet who competed with Mohammed, was destroyed, the discontented tribes in Arabia itself were reduced to obedience. The Persian provinces on the Euphrates were attacked. The Roman empire itself was summoned to accept the new religion, or to become tributary.

Upon the death of Abu Bekr, the chief associates of Mohammed around him proclaimed Omar as chalif, and entitled him Chalif, and Prince of the Faithful. In the ten years of his chalifate, from 634 to 644, Omar made the Mohammedan empire. He had exerted great influence over Mohammed himself; he had been most powerful with Abu Bekr, who pointed him out for a successor. The man who had been of violent temper and bloody battles, now sedulously practised the administration of justice. He gave much, and used little for himself. He wore a patched dress, and fed on barley bread and water; he prayed and preached, and ate and slept upon the steps of the mosque among the pilgrims. There he received the messengers of kings. The severe chalif, a sworn foe to all effeminacy, strove to train a rude host to war. Arts he proscribed, even those of house and ship-building. When the great city of Modain, or Ctesiphon, was taken, he commanded the library of the Persian kings to be thrown into the Tigris. When some of his soldiers had put on silken garments which they had looted in Syria, he rubbed their faces in the mud and tore their garments in pieces. Such was the man under whom half-armed nomad tribes broke the armies of Heraclius, and took one after another the cities of Syria.

But on the side of the emperor were divided counsels, distrust, rankling enmities; Nestorian and Eutychean heretics hating each other, and still more the sovereign under whom they should have fought as well for a common country as for a common faith. The fate of Syria was decided in a terrible battle on the banks of the Hieromax, or Yarmuk. There, the Saracen generals, Obeidah and Khaled, “The sword of God,” utterly defeated the Greek army of 80,000 men. Obeidah wrote to the chalif Omar: “In the name of the most merciful God, I must make thee to know that I encamped on the Yarmuk, and Manuel was near us with a force such as the Moslem never had a greater. But God struck down that host, and gave us the victory out of His overflowing grace and goodness. God has given to 4030 Moslim the honour of martyrdom. All that fled into the desert and mountains we have put down; have beset all roads and passes; God has made us lords of their lands and riches and children. Written after the victory from Damaskus where I am, and await thy command for the division of the booty. Farewell, and the blessing and grace of God be over thee and all Moslim.”

After this, city upon city surrendered in affright. In the winter of 636, Obeidah lay before Jerusalem, from which Heraclius took away the Holy Cross with himself to Constantinople. At Antioch, in his dismay, he asked the question why those miserable half naked barbarians, the Arabs, not to be compared with the Romans in armour, or art of war, beat them in the field. A veteran answered him that the wrath of God was on the Romans, who despised His commands, were guilty of every excess, allowed themselves intolerable oppression and violence.

We do not read that Heraclius made an attempt to relieve Jerusalem, which yet was besieged during a year. Obeidah wrote to the patriarch and the inhabitants: “Salutation and blessing to all those who walk in the right way. We invite you to confess that there is only one God, and Mohammed is His Prophet. If you will not make this confession, then resolve to make your city tributary to the chalif. If you delay to do this, I will set my people upon you, who all love death more than you love wine and swine flesh. Hope not that I will draw away hence, until, if God please, I have killed all your warriors, and made slaves of your children.”

The patriarch Sophronius negotiated without hope of earthly aid, and Obeidah, to save the Holy City, the cradle of prophets, from being desecrated by blood-shedding, yielded to the Christian wish that the chalif in person should be asked to receive the keys of the city, and regulate the conditions of surrender. And in 637 Chalif Omar came from Medina. As the Commander of the Faithful entered the city, he rode on a camel, clothed like the poorest Bedouin, and carrying on the same rough beast a sack of dates, rice, and bruised wheat or maize, also a water-skin, and a large wooden platter, on which he took his food with his companions. The terms of capitulation which he granted to the patriarch remained for long a standard to the Moslem in the like cases. First of all was the poll tax imposed by the Koran. The inhabitants to be protected and secured in life and property; their churches not to be pulled down, nor used by any but themselves. The Christians duly to pay tribute; to build no new churches either in the city or country; not to prevent Moslim by night or day from entering the churches. Their doors to be always open to travellers. The Christian to whom a traveller comes, shall entertain him three days gratis. Christians shall say nothing against the Koran. Shall prevent no one becoming Moslem. Shall show honour to Moslim. Shall not wear garments, or shoes, or turbans, like theirs. Shall not divide their hair like them. Shall not bear surnames like them. Shall not ride on saddles. Shall bear no arms, nor Arabic writing on their seals, nor give away wine, nor sell it. They shall wear the same kind of dress everywhere, and that with a girdle. They may have no slave who has served a Moslem. No crosses on the churches; nor ring bells, but only strike them.

The chalif Omar caused himself to be led into all the holy places in the garb of a pilgrim by the patriarch Sophronius, even to the church of the Resurrection. There he placed himself on the floor, and the patriarch was most anxious lest he should practise his own acts of devotion there. With breaking heart the patriarch quoted to those around him the words of Daniel, “The abomination of desolation in the temple”.

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