But there was another strong incentive to keep
conversion to a minimum. Omar had set up the diwan, a
system by which every Muslim received an annual
stipend, much as citizens of the oil-rich Gulf state of
Dubai do today. It followed that the fewer Muslims there
were, the larger the stipends, and since the taxes that
provided these stipends were no greater than those
previously paid to the Byzantines and the Persians, there
was at ɹrst little resistance to them. As in any change of
regime today, when photographs of the old ruler
suddenly come down oʃ the walls and ones of the new
ruler go up, most people made their accommodations
with Arab rule. But not everyone.
Nobody could have foreseen the assassination, the
Medinans would say. It seemed to come out of the blue.
How was anyone to know that a Christian slave from
Persia would lose his mind and do such a dastardly
thing? To stab the Caliph six times as he bent down for
morning prayer in the mosque, then drive the dagger
deep into his own chest? It was incomprehensible.
There would be hints of a conspiracy—veiled derision
of the very idea of a lone gunman, as it were, instead of
a sophisticated plot by dark forces intent on
undermining the new Islamic empire. Yet in the seventh
century, as in the twenty-ɹrst, people could be driven to
irrational despair. Or in this case, perhaps, to rational