Note 3 — PART II

The lapse of ages, enthusiasm, or carelessness, tribal jealousies or the accidental predilections of an individual poet or historian, combine to render the early history of the Arabs, so far as precision in dates, the definite order and mutual relations of events, characters, and localities are concerned, perplexing and insecure, or tantalizing by the wealth of detail, impressive indeed, but eluding the test of historical criticism. Their tactics and the composition of their armies make the precise share of this or that general in determining the result of a battle or a campaign difficult to estimate. Yet by (he concord of authorities the glory of the overthrow of the Empire of the Sassanides seems to be the portion, first of Mothanna, who sustained the fortunes of Islam at a most critical hour, A.H. 13-14, and by his victory at Boawib just warded off a great disaster; and secondly of Saad, the victor of Kadesia, A.H. 15, A.D. 636-7, the conqueror and first administrator of Irak. The claims of Amr, or Amrou, to the conquest of Egypt, Pelusium, Memphis, Alexandria, A.D. 638, admit of hardly a doubt; whilst the distinction of Khalid, "the Sword of God," in the Syrian War at the storming of Damascus and in the crushing defeat of Heraclius at the Yermuk, August, A.D. 634, may justly entitle him to the designation—if that description can be applied to any one of the devoted band—of "Conqueror of Syria."