Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Dan Jones

Yet Umar was not successful simply because he was charismatic and capable. He was also the chief executive officer and spiritual leader of a machine built for and fed by conquest, and perfectly attuned to its day. When the Muslims were expanding and consolidating their rule in Arabia under Muhammad and Abu Bakr, conversion to Islam was a prerequisite of conquest. But once they ventured outside the Arabic-speaking world, the Muslims did not attempt simply to repeat this model. Whether they swept through regions populated by desert nomads or drew up their horsemen and siege catapults outside the great cities of Byzantium and Persia, they made it clear that they did not come as a dogmatic army hell-bent on converting or killing every man, woman, and child before them. Their only demand was that communities surrendered quickly and submitted to government by a Muslim ruling elite. Christians, Jews, and other monotheists were not expected to become Muslims—and in some cases were actively discouraged from doing so on the grounds that they would contribute higher tax yields as infidels than they would as believers. They were exempted from military service and obliged only to pay the jizyah poll tax and rule their own communities in an orderly and civilized fashion. Meanwhile, the Muslim soldiers