operations from al-Yarmuk to Qinnasrīn; he concluded peace with the inhabitants of Aleppo, Manbij, and Antioch on the basis of the jizyah, and he took the rest of the territory of Qinnasrīn by force.

He said:
In the same year Sarūj and ar-Ruhā (1) were conquered at the hands of ʿIyāḍ b. Ghanm.

He also said:
Ibn al-Kalbī relates that during this very year Abū ʿUbaydah marched, with Khālid b. al-Walīd commanding his vanguard, and laid siege to Iliyāʾ (Jerusalem). Its people requested a treaty on condition that ʿUmar himself come and ratify it. Abū ʿUbaydah therefore wrote to ʿUmar, who travelled there, concluded the peace, remained a few days, and then returned to Madinah.

I say:
This event has already been mentioned under the year preceding this one, and Allah knows best.

Al-Wāqidī said:
In this same year ʿUmar designated al-Rabadhah as a protected pasture for the cavalry of the Muslims.

During it ʿUmar also banished Abū Mihjan al-Thaqafī to Bāḍiʿ (2).

And in it ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar married Ṣafiyyah bint Abī ʿUbayd.

I say:
Her father was killed on the Day of the Bridge; he had been the commander of that detachment. She was the sister of al-Mukhtār b. Abī ʿUbayd, who later governed Iraq. She herself was a righteous woman, whereas her brother was a profligate—and indeed an unbeliever as well.

Al-Wāqidī further said:
In this year ʿUmar led the people in the pilgrimage, appointing Zayd b. Thābit as his deputy over Madinah.

He added:
His representative in Mecca was ʿAttāb; over Syria, Abū ʿUbaydah; over Iraq, Saʿd; over al-Ṭāʾif, ʿUthmān b. Abī al-ʿĀṣ; over Yemen, Yaʿlā b. Umayyah; over al-Yamāmah and Bahrain, al-ʿAlāʾ b. al-Ḥaḍramī; over ʿUmān, Ḥudhayfah b. Miḥṣan; over Basra, al-Mughīrah b. Shuʿbah; over Mosul, Rabīʿī b. al-Afkal; and over al-Jazīrah, ʿIyāḍ b. Ghanm al-Ashʿarī.

[ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) institutes the Hijrī calendar]

Al-Wāqidī said:
In Rabīʿ al-Awwal of this year—namely, the year 16 AH—ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb established the calendar (3); he was the first to write it down.

I say:
The reason for this has already been given in the biography of ʿUmar. A deed was submitted to him, written for one man against another, stipulating that the debt would fall due in Shaʿbān.

He asked, “Which Shaʿbān? This year’s, the one before it, or the one after it?”

He therefore assembled the people and said, “Provide the people with something by which they may know when their debts mature.” It is said that some of them proposed