BIRTH OF THE KHALIFATE 47Omar's treatment of Jerusalem set the pattern for relations between
Muslims and the people they conquered. Christians found that under
Muslim rule they would be subject to a special poll tax called the jizya.
That was the bad news. The good news: the jizya would generally be less
than the taxes they had been paying to their Byzantine overlords-who did
interfere with their religious practices (because the nuances of ritual and
belief among various Christian sects mattered to them, whereas to the
Muslims they were all just Christians.} The idea of lower taxes and greater
religious freedom struck Christians as a pretty good deal, and so Muslims
faced little or no local resistance in former Byzantine territory. In fact, Jews
and Christians sometimes joined them in fighting the Byzantines.
By the time Omar died, Islamic rule covered more than 2 million
square miles. How was this possible? Religious Muslims offer the simple
explanation that Muslims had the irresistible supernatural aid of Allah.
Academic historians explain that the Byzantine and Sassanid empires had
just fought a ruinous war with each other, and despite their seeming
might, they were both rotten to the core and ready to fall. Another often-
cited explanation holds that Muslims fought more ferociously than others
because they believed that they would go directly to heaven if they were
killed and get seventy-rwo virgins. I can't comment on that, but I will sug-
gest some other factors.
Those early Muslims had a sense that they were fighting for something
apocalyptically great. They felt that fighting for their cause made their lives
meaningful and would give their deaths meaning as well. People have
proven time and again that they will attack extraordinary obstacles and en-
dure tremendous hardships if they think the effort will impart meaning to
their lives. The human hunger for meaning is a craving as fundamental as
food and drink. Everyday life gives people little opportunity for this sort of
nourishment, which is one reason why people get swept along by narra-
tives that cast them as key players in apocalyptic dramas. Muslim warriors
in the time of Khalifa Omar had that sense about their lives.
Developments back home kept their idealism alive, because Omar en-
forced what he practiced and practiced what he preached. Under his guid-
ance, Medina did reflect the values that Muslims said they were bringing
to the world: fellowship, fairness, harmony, decency, democratic participa-
tion in decision making, equality, and compassion. At the very least, the