The Conquest of Antioch

فتح أنطاكية

c. 637 CE · c. 16 AH

Antioch

In al-Baladhuri: Abu Ubayda went from Aleppo to Antioch, where a body of the people of the Qinnasrin jund had fortified themselves; at Haruba — near two farsakhs from the city — an enemy gathering met him and he scattered them back into the city, besieging it at all its gates, the bulk of the army at Bab Faris and the gate called Bab al-Bahr; they then compounded for jizya and evacuation, some departing and some staying, and he secured them setting on each adult a dinar and a jarib; when they broke the covenant he sent Iyad ibn Ghanm and Habib ibn Maslama, who retook it on the first treaty — others say they broke it after he returned to Filastin and Amr ibn al-As was sent from Iliya' to take it; Umar wrote to Abu Ubayda to station at Antioch a company of Muslims of right intent and scruple as murabita, withholding no mounts from them, and Mu'awiya received the same when in office while Uthman ordered him to settle men there and grant land — which he did; Mu'awiya transferred to Antioch in year 42 companies of Persians and people of Ba'labakk, Hims and the two Misrs, and al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik granted troops land at Saluqiyya by the coast rating the filthir at a dinar and two mudds of wheat — they cultivated it and he built Hisn Saluqiyya; among the transferees was Muslim ibn Abdullah — grandfather of Abdullah ibn Habib ibn al-Nu'man al-Antaki — whom a Byzantine killed with a stone on the wall, a gate of Antioch being named Bab Muslim after him.