It states the city to have contained four thousand palaces,
five thousand baths, four hundred theatres and places of amusement,
twelve thousand gardeners which supply it with vegetables, and forty
thousand tributary Jews. It was impossible, he said, to do justice to
its riches and magnificence. He had hitherto held it sacred from
plunder, but his troops, having won it by force of arms, considered
themselves entitled to the spoils of victory.
The caliph Omar, in reply, expressed a high sense of his important
services, but reproved him for even mentioning the desire of the
soldiery to plunder so rich a city, one of the greatest emporiums of the
East. He charged him, therefore, most rigidly to watch over the
rapacious propensities of his men; to prevent all pillage, violence, and
waste; to collect and make out an account of all moneys, jewels,
household furniture, and everything else that was valuable, to be
appropriated toward defraying the expenses of this war of the faith. He
ordered the tribute also, collected in the conquered country, to be
treasured up at Alexandria for the supplies of the Moslem troops.
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