whereupon the two youths embraced Islam on the spot. The Caliph then ordered that they be paraded around the city clad in their robes of honour, and that they be stationed beneath the fortress in which Yatis was quartered (1) so that dirhams and garments might be showered upon them, along with the letter Yatis had written to the Byzantine emperor. The Romans thereupon cursed and reviled them.
Al-Muʿtaṣim next commanded the guards to be strengthened and strict watch kept lest the Byzantines launch a sudden sortie. The Romans were thus driven to despair, while the Muslims tightened the siege. The Caliph had arrayed against the city many mangonels, dabbābāt (mobile siege shelters), and other engines of war.
When al-Muʿtaṣim observed the depth of the moat and the height of the ramparts, he ordered the mangonels to batter the wall. On the march he had taken an enormous number of sheep as booty, which he now distributed among the troops, saying, “Let each man eat the head and fill the skin with earth, then cast it into the moat.” The men did so until, through the countless sheep-skins hurled in, the trench became level with the ground. He then ordered earth to be heaped over that until it formed a smooth roadway, and commanded that the dabbābāt be placed upon it—though Allah spared them the need for that.
While the men were on the newly made bridge of packed earth (2), a mangonel struck the defective section of the wall. When the span between the two towers collapsed, a tremendous crash was heard; those who had not seen it thought the Byzantines had burst out upon them without warning. Al-Muʿtaṣim therefore dispatched a herald to proclaim, “It is only the wall that has fallen!” The Muslims rejoiced greatly, yet the breach was too narrow for the army to pass. The Caliph ordered the scattered mangonels to be brought together and set up around the fallen spot so that the surrounding wall might be smashed and the opening widened for horses and men.
The siege there intensified. The Byzantines had appointed a commander over every tower, and the officer whose section had collapsed proved unequal to the pressure of the Muslims. He went to Yatis to ask for reinforcements, but not a single Roman would aid him, saying, “We will not abandon the places assigned to us.”
When he lost hope of them, he came out to al-Muʿtaṣim to surrender. Upon his arrival, the Caliph ordered the Muslims to enter the city through the breach that now lay empty of defenders. The Muslims rode toward it; the Romans signalled frantically for them not to come, yet could offer no resistance. The Muslims ignored them, pressed forward in numbers, forced their way into the city, and wave after wave of believers followed, proclaiming the takbīr. The Byzantines abandoned their posts, whereupon the Muslims (3) began killing them wherever they were found. They herded many into an enormous church, burst it open by force, and slew those