informing him of what had taken place.

It is said that he was at that time in Homs; others maintain that he had gone on pilgrimage that very year to the Holy House in Jerusalem. When the report reached him he said to them, “Woe to you! These people profess a new religion, and no one has the power to withstand them. Obey me and make peace with them on the basis that you surrender to them half the land-tax of Syria while the Roman mountains remain yours. If you refuse, they will seize Syria from you and hem you in within the Roman mountains.” At this they snorted like wild asses, as is their habit because of their (1) lack of insight and judgment in matters of war and in securing success for both religion and worldly life.

Thereupon he set out for Homs, and Heraclius ordered (2) the Roman armies to march out under their commanders, assigning to each Muslim leader a massive host. He dispatched against ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ his full brother Theodore with ninety thousand fighting men. He sent George son of Tudhra toward Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan, who encamped opposite him (3) with fifty or sixty thousand. He sent al-Durāqis against Shurahbil ibn Ḥasana, and he sent al-Fīqār (4)—some say al-Qayqalān; Ibn Ishaq says he was Heraclius’s eunuch, Nestorus—with sixty thousand against Abu ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarrah.

The Byzantines declared, “By God, we shall so preoccupy Abu Bakr that he will be unable to bring his cavalry into our land.” All the Muslim forces together numbered twenty-one thousand, apart from the army with ʿIkrimah ibn Abi Jahl, who was stationed on the edge of Syria (5) as a reserve for the people with six thousand men.

The commanders wrote to Abu Bakr and ʿUmar informing them of the grave situation that had arisen. He replied to them, “Gather together and form (6) a single army; confront the hosts of the idolaters. You are the helpers of Allah, and Allah grants victory (7) to those who aid Him and abandons those who disbelieve. You will never be overcome because of small numbers, but only because of sins—so beware of them. Let every man among you lead the prayer with his own contingent.”

Al-Ṣiddiq also said, “By Allah, I shall distract the Christians from Satan’s whisperings with Khālid ibn al-Walid.” He therefore wrote to Khālid, who was in Iraq, ordering him to proceed to Syria and assume command of those who were there; once the task was completed he was to return to his post in Iraq, as we shall relate.

When Heraclius learned that al-Ṣiddiq had instructed his commanders to unite, he likewise ordered his generals to gather and to encamp the army in a site broad for watering (8), spacious for maneuver (9), yet narrow for escape. He placed over the troops his brother Theodore, over the vanguard George, over the two wings Bahan and al-Durāqis, and over the coastal front al-Qayqalān.

Muhammad ibn ʿĀʾidh (10) reported—from ʿAbd al-Aʿlā, from Saʿid ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz—that the Muslims were four