Note 37 — Chapter V · CAMPAIGN OF KHALID AGAINST THE FALSE PROPHET TOLEIHA. A.H. XI. Nov. A.D. 632.
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It was a vain excuse, but was founded on the principle that no bloodshed, treachery, sin, or excess of any sort, before conversion, cast any blot on the believer; but that apostasy, however, repented of, left a stigma which could never wholly be effaced. At first the Caliph would receive no aid whatever from any tribe or individual who had apostatised; and, though when levies came to be needed urgently, the ban was taken off, still to the end no apostate chief was allowed a large command, or put over more than a hundred men.
Among the Beni Suleim was Abu Shajra, son of the famous elegiac poetess, Al Khansa. A martial piece which he composed in reference to an engagement at this time contains the verse:—
‘And I slaked my thirsty spear in the blood of Khâlid’s troop.’
Some years after, he visited Medîna, while Omar was distributing the tithe among the poor Arabs around the city: ‘Give to me,’ said the stranger, ‘for I, too, am poor and needy.’ ‘And who art thou?’ asked Omar. Being told his name, he cried out in anger: ‘Art not thou the same that said, I slaked my thirsty spear, &c.?’ and he beat him about the head with his whip till the poet was fain to run off to his camel. A poem complaining of this treatment has been preserved, in which he says:—
‘Abu Hafs (Omar) grudged me of his gifts, Although every one that shaketh even a tree getteth at least the leaves it sheddeth.’
Such poetical fragments, in the scantiness of the materials for this early period, give at many points reality and fulness to the story.