حمص

حمص

A city of Syria on the Orontes; its people compounded with Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah (may God be pleased with him) after Damascus's fall for safety of lives, wealth, wall, churches and mills — a quarter of St John's church excepted for the mosque — at a hundred and seventy thousand dinars; when Heraclius massed for the Yarmuk the Muslims returned to its people the kharaj taken, and they preferred Muslim rule to the injustice they had known, shutting the gates against Heraclius's army as did its Jews; afterwards Hims and Qinnasrin became a single jund; Marwan ibn Muhammad demolished its wall for their defection, and its stone pavement was lifted at al-Mu'tasim's order in the days of al-Fadl ibn Qarin, then the people rebelled, killed and crucified him, and Musa ibn Bugha the Elder took the city by force in year 250.