Whatever happened, in 635 (or possibly 636) the city was formally handed over to the Muslims, under financial terms thrashed out in a peace conference at a covered market in the city center. “Damascus was conquered and its inhabitants paid the jizyah,” wrote the chronicler al-Tabari, who composed a monumental history of Islam during the early tenth century.5 (By jizyah, he meant a “head tax”: the financial levy imposed on Jews, Christians, and other monotheists, in return for which they could live and worship in peace.)
