The Use of Islamic Materials by Non-Muslim Writers r 93signed between the indigenous population of the conquered lands and
the notable Muslim caliph.^21 Moreover, these pseudo-historical traditions
include stories about the indigenous population anticipating the advance
of the Muslims. They are said to await the fulfillment of the prophetic
tradition about the coming of ̔Umar b. al-Khattab and his forces.^22
Over and over again, the Islamic narrative of the emergence of the ca-
liphate depicts the non-Muslim subjects as cooperating with the armies of
Islam and signing truce pacts (aman; ̔ahd) with the Muslim command-
ers. A case in point is the pseudo-historical account of Khalid b. al-Walid’s
journey (13/635). Muslim authors claim that on his way from Iraq to Da-
mascus, Khalid seized the historical town of Tadmur (Palmyra in Syria).
The local Christian inhabitants agreed to pay the Muslim commander a
sum of money, in return for which he pledged to protect (dhimma) them.
This story continues with another example in which Khalid meets the
archbishop (usquf=episcopes) of Damascus outside the eastern walls of
city, and the latter asks him to preserve the covenant ( ̔ahd) between the
victorious armies and the city’s occupants. Similar narratives are told
about other locations in Syria. The detailed pseudo-treaty between Abu
̔Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah and the inhabitants of Baalbek (Heliopolis in Leba-
non), and the accounts of the agreements between ̔Amru b. al- ̔As and
several Palestinian towns, are among those examples.^23
These types of narratives reconstructing the glorious past of Islam were
adopted by later Muslim jurists, who claimed to have copied them into
their manuals and market inspection (hisba) handbooks. The abundance
of these texts in various genres supports the thesis that they formed an
indispensable component of the Islamic discourse. The authors of these
works produced copies of what they argued to be ̔Umar’s agreements
with the protected people of various towns controlled by the caliphate.
Historical sources providing information about these Muslim-dhimmi
covenants describe complex legal documents consisting of correspond-
ing paragraphs. While the protected people undertake not to convert their
Muslim neighbors or to build new synagogues, monasteries, or churches,
to cooperate with the agents of the Islamic government, pay the jizya tax,
etc., the renowned caliph and his chief commander promise to protect the
property, lives, and religious practices of the dhimmis.
The emergence of an Islamic polity brought about the necessity of self-
definition and the rejection of the polemical positions that the adversar-
ies of Islam voiced.^24 A clear-cut definition to separate the new Islamic