destroyed four thousand churches, replacing them with fourteen hundred
mosques. In a few years they had extended their rule a thousand miles
east and west. In Syria, as in Africa, their early successes were
promoted in the most effectual manner by treachery. Damascus was taken
after a siege of a year. At the battle of Aiznadin, A.D. 633, Kalid,
"the Sword of God," defeated the army of Heraclius, the Romans losing
fifty thousand men; and this was soon followed by the fall of the great
cities Jerusalem, Antioch, Aleppo, Tyre, Tripoli. On a red camel, which
carried a bag of corn and one of dates, a wooden dish, and a leather
water-bottle, the Khalif Omar came from Medina to take formal possession
of Jerusalem. He entered the Holy City riding by the side of the
Christian patriarch Sophronius, whose capitulation showed that his
confidence in God was completely lost. The successor of Mohammed and the
Roman emperor both correctly judged how important in the eyes of the
nations was the possession of Jerusalem. A belief that it would be a
proof of the authenticity of Mohammedanism led Omar to order the Saracen
troops to take it at any cost.

The conquest of Syria and the seizure of the Mediterranean ports gave to
the Arabs the command of the sea. They soon took Rhodes and Cyprus. The
battle of Cadesia and sack of Ctesiphon, the metropolis of Persia,
decided the fate of that kingdom. Syria was thus completely reduced
under Omar, the second khalif; Persia under Othman, the third.

[Sidenote: The Arabs become a learned nation.]

If it be true that the Arabs burned the library of Alexandria, there was
at that time danger that their fanaticism would lend itself to the
Byzantine system; but it was only for a moment that the khalifs fell
into this evil policy. They very soon became distinguished patrons of
learning. It has been said that they overran the domains of science as
quickly as they overran the realms of their neighbours. It became
customary for the first dignities of the state to be held by men
distinguished for their erudition. Some of the maxims current show how
much literature was esteemed. "The ink of the doctor is equally valuable
with the blood of the martyr." "Paradise is as much for him who has
rightly used the pen as for him who has fallen by the sword." "The world
is sustained by four things only: the learning of the wise, the justice
of the great, the prayers of the good, and the valour of the brave."
Within twen