Note 224 — Chapter XIV · ACCESSION OF OMAR—REINFORCEMENTS FOR IRAC—CAMPAIGN THERE UNDER ABU OBEID AND MOTHANNA. Jumâd II., A.H. XIII.—Moharram, A.H. XIV. August, A.D. 634–March, A.D. 635.

It would unnecessarily weary the reader to detail these raids at any length. Some of them were against other and hostile branches of the very Christian tribes that had fought at the Bridge and at Boweib on the Moslem side; some were to obtain supplies for the army, which was reduced at one time to great extremities for food; but most were for the double purpose of striking terror into the people, and at the same time gaining plunder. On one occasion the Beni Bekr ransomed a great company of prisoners from the Taghlib tribe, by relinquishing their own share of the booty. One of these minor actions is called ‘Anbâr the second’; and another ‘Allîs the second.’

A somewhat remarkable incident shows that Omar had spies in all quarters, and also that he dreaded the outbreak of ancestral quarrels between the different Arab tribes. The garrison of Siffîn, in Mesopotamia, composed of the Beni Namr and Taghlib, were attacked by the Beni Bekr and driven out of their stronghold, over the banks into the river. In their terror they cried out, We are drowning! and the Beni Bekr answered, Yea, drowning for burning! in allusion to an occasion in former days in which the Beni Taghlib had burned alive some of the Beni Bekr tribe. Omar, learning the circumstance from his spies, demanded what this threat—founded on a pre-Islamite feud, and therefore alien from the spirit of Islam—should mean. He was told that the threat was used, not in a spirit of retaliation, but of punishment and example, and in the interests of the faith; and the explanation was accepted.