and the Muslims on the loss of al-Ṣiddīq, and informed him that he had appointed him over those in al-Shām and had instructed him to consult Khālid about the conduct of the war. When the letter reached Abū ʿUbaydah he kept it from Khālid until roughly twenty nights later, when Damascus was taken.

Khālid said to him, “May Allah have mercy on you! What kept you from telling me when it came?”

He replied, “I was loath to break (1) the momentum of your campaign. I seek no worldly authority, nor do I work for this world; all that you now behold will soon pass away and disappear. We are but two brothers, and it does not harm a man if his brother should preside over him in matters of religion and in worldly affairs.”

[Was Khālid’s reinforcement during the caliphate of Abū Bakr or of ʿUmar?]

Among the most remarkable reports cited here is what Yaʿqūb ibn Sufyān al-Fasawī (2) transmitted: Hishām ibn ʿAmmār narrated to us, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad narrated to us, Rāshid ibn Dāwūd al-Ṣanʿānī narrated to us—Abū ʿUthmān al-Ṣanʿānī related it to me—from Sharāḥīl ibn Marthad, who said:

“Abū Bakr dispatched Khālid ibn al-Walīd against the people of al-Yamāmah, and he sent Yazīd ibn Abī Sufyān to al-Shām. The narrator went on to describe (3) Khālid’s fighting at al-Yamāmah until he said: ‘Abū Bakr died and ʿUmar succeeded him; ʿUmar then sent Abū ʿUbaydah to al-Shām. When Abū ʿUbaydah reached Damascus, he requested reinforcements from ʿUmar, whereupon ʿUmar wrote to Khālid ibn al-Walīd, ordering him to proceed to Abū ʿUbaydah in al-Shām.’”

He then recounted Khālid’s march from Iraq to al-Shām just as related earlier. This report is exceedingly strange, for there is no doubt that al-Ṣiddīq was the one who dispatched Abū ʿUbaydah and the other commanders to al-Shām, and he it was who wrote to Khālid ibn al-Walīd instructing him to leave Iraq for al-Shām as reinforcement for those already there and as their commander. Through him Allah Most High opened the whole of al-Shām, as we shall describe, if Allah wills.

[“We sent him as a courier and he returned as a commander”]

Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh said: al-Walīd ibn Muslim told me, from Ṣafwān ibn ʿAmr, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jubayr ibn Nufayr, that when the Muslims conquered the city of Damascus they sent Abū ʿUbaydah ibn al-Jarāḥ as a delegate to Abū Bakr bearing the good news of victory. He reached Madinah to find that Abū Bakr had passed away and that ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb had become caliph. He considered it a grave matter to hold authority over any of the Companions (4), yet the entire community entrusted him with command. When he returned they said, “Welcome to the one whom we sent as a courier and who has come back to us as our commander.”