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When the leading elements
of Jabla's army arrived at Emessa they found no Muslims. The army
of Qanateer hit Damascus from the west in joyful anticipation of
the destruction of the Muslims thus trapped in Damascus and the
north. But there was not a single Muslim soldier in Damascus and
the north. The birds had flown!
It was at Shaizar, through Roman prisoners,
that the Muslims first came to know of the preparations being made
by Heraclius. The Muslims had established an excellent intelligence
system in the land, and no major movement or concentration of enemy
forces remained concealed from them. In fact they had agents within
the Roman army. As the days lengthened into weeks, the pieces of
intelligence brought in by agents were put together like a jigsaw
puzzle, and the movement of the Roman armies had hardly got under
way when the Muslims knew of it and of the directions taken by the
armies. Even the reinforcement of Caesarea and its strength were
known.
The Muslims were staggered by the reports,
each of which seemed worse than its predecessor. The horizon became
darker and darker. Khalid, however, with his unerring sense of strategy
at once saw the design of Heraclius and realized how terribly vulnerable
the Muslim army was at Emessa and Shaizar. The soundest course was
to pull back from North and Central Syria, as well as from Palestine,
and concentrate the whole army so that strong, united opposition
could be put up against the Roman juggernaut, preferably not far
from the friendly desert. Khalid advised Abu Ubaidah accordingly
and the Army Commander accepted the proposal. He ordered the withdrawal
of the army to Jabiya, which was the junction of the routes from
Syria, Jordan and Palestine. Moreover, exercising his authority
as Commander-in-Chief in Syria, he ordered Shurahbil, Yazeed and
Amr bin Al Aas to give up the territory in their occupation and
join him at Jabiya. Thus, before the Romans reached Damascus, Abu
Ubaidah and Khalid, with elements of Yazeed's corps, were at Jabiya
while the other corps were moving to join them. They had safely
extricated themselves from the jaws of death.
The remarkably generous treatment of the populace of Emessa by Abu
Ubaidah, when the Muslims left that city, throws light on the sense
of justice and truth of this brave and noble general. On the conquest
of Emessa, the Muslims had collected the Jizya from the local inhabitants.
This tax, as has been explained before, was taken from non-Muslims
in return for their exemption from military service and their protection
against their enemies. But since the Muslims were now leaving the
city and were no longer in a position to protect them, Abu Ubaidah
called a meeting of the people and returned all the money taken
as Jizya. "We are not able to help and defend you",
said Abu Ubaidah. "You are now on your own." To
this the people replied, "Your rule and justice are dearer
to us than the oppression and cruelty in which we existed before."
1 The Jews of Emessa proved the most loyal
in their friendship, and swore that the officers of Heraclius would
not enter the city except by force. Moreover, not content with doing
total justice in the matter of the Jizya in his own province, Abu
Ubaidah also wrote to the other corps commanders in Syria to return
the Jizya to the people who had paid it, and this was done by every
Muslim commander before he marched away to join Abu Ubaidah at Jabiya.
2 Such an extraordinary and voluntary return
by an all-conquering army of what it has taken according to mutually
arranged terms, had never happened before. It would never happen
again.
In the middle of July 636, the forward elements
of the imperial army, consisting of Christian Arabs, made contact
with Muslim screens between Damascus and Jabiya. Abu Ubaidah was
now deeply worried. A battle was certain, and one that would decide
the fate of the Muslims in Syria. The enemy strength, believed by
the Muslims to be 200,000, seemed like a horrible nightmare. Abu
Ubaidah worried not for himself but for the Muslim army and the
Muslim cause. He called a council of war to brief the officers about
the enemy situation and get ideas.
The officers sat in silence, weighed down
by the forbidding prospect which faced them. One spoke in favour
of a withdrawal into Arabia where the army could wait until this
Roman storm has passed and then re-enter Syria, but this proposal
was rejected as being tantamount to abandoning all the Muslim conquests
in Syria and exchanging the good life of this land for the hardship
and hunger of the desert. Others spoke in favour of fighting "here
and now", trusting to Allah for victory, and most of the assembled
officers favoured this proposal. The mood of the council, however,
was not of happy enthusiasm but of grim determination to fight,
and if necessary, go down fighting.
1. Balazuri: p. 143.
2. Abu Yusuf: p. 139.
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