eighty lashes of the whip, and refused to mourn when he
died as a result of the punishment.
In the ten years of Omar’s rule, the Muslims took
control of the whole of Syria and Iraq, an expansion so
rapid that it is still often explained by “a tribal
imperative to conquest.” The phrase is unknown to
anthropologists, but it calls up an image of bloodthirsty
peoples impelled by primitive urges, threatening the sane
rationalism of the more civilized—the image incessantly
echoed in current coverage of conflict in the Middle East.
In fact there was less blood involved than money. The
Muslim forces did indeed win stunning military victories
over the Persians and the Byzantines, despite being
vastly outnumbered, but for the most part, the Arab
conquest took place more by messenger than by the
sword. Given the choice to accept Arab rule—albeit with
the sword held in reserve—most of Islam’s new subjects
raised little objection. The Arabs, after all, were no
strangers.
Long before Muhammad’s ascent to power, Meccan
aristocrats had owned estates in Egypt, mansions in
Damascus, farms in Palestine, date orchards in Iraq.
They had put down roots in the lands and cities they
traded with, for to be a trader in the seventh century was
to be a traveler, and to be a traveler was to be a
sojourner. The twice-yearly Meccan caravans to
Damascus—up to four thousand camels at a time—did