The Milk Pail: The Tape Recorder Trilogy - S3E02

(633 - 644 CE · The Holy Land, Arabia, & Egypt) 

The Narrator serves as personal secretary to Amr ibn Al-As and takes part in the Arab conquest of Egypt, which happened despite the objections of Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab. 

Based on Chapter 2 of End by Geoff Micks.

Enjoying the show? Tell us a little about yourself, submit a comment, and/or ask a question through this short survey.

For more, visit my podcast website and personal website. 

Follow me on Bluesky. 

Follow me on Substack.

Join my Facebook page.

Support me on Patreon.

Credits: 

Voice Acting - Geoff Micks

Editing - Geoff Micks

Music - Dimitri Kovalchuk (MokuseiNoMaguro) through Pixabay

Additional Music - Aleksey Voronin (Amaksi) through Pixabay 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In 2015, a man who has been alive since the last ice age bought a tape recorder, and over the course of three days he dictated his life story as fast as he could while waiting for a woman to visit who he believes will finally be the death of him. Hello, my name is Jeff Mix, and you're listening to season three, episode two of the Tape Recorder Trilogy Podcast. Enjoy. So rich and powerful was Amr's family, in fact, that Amr was chosen while still just a young man to ask the king of Abyssinia to stop taking in Muslims fleeing Meccan persecution. The polytheistic Meccans were confident they could stamp out the few monotheists in their midst if they could eliminate their bolt holes. Ammer failed in his mission, but it hardly mattered. By the time he returned, nearby Yathrib, the future Medina, the city of the Prophet, had offered Muhammad, peace be upon him, a safe base of operations to build his new faith. Amr led a contingent of his family's retainers in the early battles against the Messenger of God. There were only a few hundred Muslims in the world at that time, but they held out against the best that Mecca could send against them. Unable to destroy the new religion, Amr wondered why, and while learning about his foes, he and other young Meccans like him heard the call of God in their own way and joined the Uma in Yathrib. With his ranks swelled by new converts, Muhammad, peace be upon him, finally had the temporal power to return to Mecca as the leader of a parade of Muslim pilgrims. The Prophet and his companions took over the Kaaba, cast down the idols gathered there, and made the house of God the home of Allah alone. Amr and I often spoke about that time in his life, how his face always lit up when he spoke of Muhammad, peace be upon him. Amr had transformed himself from a bitter enemy to a true believer, and he could happily spend a day and a night talking about nothing but his faith in those early heady days of our friendship. We rode camels to Medina, our horses falling behind on long lead lines. At the time I would have much preferred to ride a horse, but it was considered bad form to force even the most patient mare to carry a man through the wastelands when a camel could do so without difficulty. I remember blushing crimson as Ammer laughed at my amateurish riding habits. He coached me as best he could in the ways of crossing the desert perched atop a hump backed, ill mannered, treacherous, spiteful beast. I got the hang of it eventually, but not on that first trip to Medina. That was one long journey of hardship and suffering for a novice like me. We often waded out the hottest part of the day in the sheltering shade of some rocky outcropping or steep valley, but when those were not to be found, even a rich man like Ammer was not above throwing his cloak over some spindly bush and laying down in the dirt, tucking his head and hands into the relative darkness there until the sun's most brutal heat had passed. There he would tell me stories from his life, stories that are considered holy by a billion people and more around the world today. When we arrived at last in Medina, it was a revelation to me. By now Islam had conquered all of Arabia, all of Palestine, all of Syria, and much of the land between the Euphrates and the Tigris, but you would not know it to see the capital of that empire. It was dusty, windblown, sun scorched, with no palaces or great buildings at all. One fifth of all the war booty from a series of great conquests had poured into this place in triumph, but it had all drained out again just as quickly to feed the poor, support the war widows, arm the faithful, and spread the word of God. Muhammad, peace be upon him, had died about eight years before my first visit to Mecca, and his dear friend Abu Bakr, who had succeeded him as leader of the Umah, followed him to paradise two years later. Amr and I found the current caliph sitting on the ground in the shadow of a one story mosque, surrounded by other old men who were almost all better dressed than him. He was barefoot, and his clothes were threadbare and patched. Umar ibn al-Khatab could have been mistaken for someone's destitute grandfather, but he was the most powerful man in every direction for a thousand miles and more. As I said, he was the caliph, a word meaning successor, but also in essence the emperor of the Muslim faith. Let me pause for a moment and tell a popular story that will paint a clearer picture of just how humble the man appeared. While Amr was fighting the Romans in the Holy Land in Syria, another great Muslim army fought the Sassanids in Iraq, the Arab's name for Mesopotamia. Caliph Umar spent much of his day at that time waiting at the northeastern edge of Medina, looking out at the horizon, hoping for word from the front. One day a camel courier appeared, riding towards the city of the Prophet at great speed. The caliph rose up and ran out to meet him in the desert asking, What news? What news? The camel courier rode past the poor beggar in his threadbare homespun robe without even slowing down, making his way to the mosque where he demanded to speak to the Prince of the Faithful at once. You can imagine the courier's embarrassment and regret then, when the old man he had ignored out in the desert finally appeared, huffing and puffing from his long walk back. Caliph Umar, like Caliph Abu Bakr before him, was not one to spend even a clipped coin on his personal appearance or comfort. No one ever accused him of enriching himself at the expense of his faith. To return to my own experience meeting the great man, Amr ibn al As presented me to him with many kind words about my intelligence and education. Peace be upon you, prince of the faithful, I said with deep reverence to one of the prophet's best friends and earliest converts. Umar snorted. I wish they did not insist on calling me that. I am the poorest prince you will ever meet, Muhammad al Rumi, but I am the richest in spirit, for God is with me. Praise be to God, Amr and I said together. Amur then introduced me around the circle, for as his secretary, my pen would speak to all of them on his behalf, so he wanted them to know my name, my face, where I was from, how I came to be one of them. As Muslims we were all supposed to be equal, but Arabs are bound together by family ties that go back further than can be easily understood, and he was explaining to some of the most powerful men in the Muslim world that I was now going to be an extension of his own prominent place among them. He was vouching for me with men I had heard about morning, noon, and night for years now. I was starstruck as the list of introductions went on. Every one of them was a companion of the Prophet, and not just any companions of the Prophet. Not to gush, but the youngest of the men sitting in attendance of the caliph was Ali himself. Ali was the cousin and adopted son of Muhammad, peace be upon him, and depending on how you want to count such things, he was either the first, second, or third convert to Islam in the world. As a young man he had been the Prophet's champion, riding out with sword and lance to fight personal duels on the messenger of God's behalf in those early wars between Mecca and Yathrib. He was a hero of a hundred stories I had cherished in the first days of my conversion. Now approaching middle age, Ali was beginning to sport a bit of a pot belly, and his eyes were calm, thoughtful, and kind. You could tell he had fought for his faith and found peace on the far side of his battles. I remember struggling to show him only the same respectful reverence I had earlier offered to Caliph Umar. To a Christian, I suppose it would be rather like meeting Saint Peter and Saint Paul. Both are godly men, but would you not have a favourite? If you did, the right thing to do would be to treat them equally rather than hanging on the every word of one while merely listening to the other, correct? Still, when Ali gave me a polite and upon you peace in response to my greeting, I confess I felt a little dizzy in a way that Umar could not move me. After I had been introduced all around, I fell into a kind of odd stupor to be in such company, and the polite chatter about friends and family between people who had known each other all their lives just washed over me. It might have been an hour or two later when Caliph Umar brought the meeting to a point. Well, enough of that. Amur, you asked for an audience because you said you had something important you wanted to discuss. I do, Amur said, throwing one arm back to point northward. With the Romans in retreat everywhere, I believe the time has come to take the word of God into Egypt. Well, the Prince of the Faithful did not like the sound of that at all. He harumphed, and fretted, and pulled at his beard. He turned to the other old men seated around him, asking for their thoughts. The whole time he kept muttering, It's so far. It's so far. I have never claimed to know much at all about war, dear listeners, but I do know my geography. Prince of the Faithful, I said humbly, when he at last asked for my own opinion of the idea, Egypt is only half the distance from my home in Ala, as Ayla is from where we are here in Medina. It is true the Sinai Desert is a terrible place, but perhaps if Sheik Amer ibn Alas takes the coastal road from Gaza. I trailed off, for they were all laughing at me. A few were just snickering. Ali chuckled in a quiet way. Many were roaring mightily, slapping their thighs or throwing their hands up to the sky in mirth. My patron was among the loudest. What a Roman thing to say, Amar finally gasped through his guffaws. You must excuse my friends, he is no Arab. When he had composed himself enough to speak at greater length, Amir explained, The Sinai is nothing to us, Mohammed al Rumi. Deserts do not concern Arabs as long as we can cross them before the camels start to die. No, Umar al Katab is worried about the mountains and rivers and seas that would prevent us from coming easily back here to Medina, or prevent his messengers and reinforcements from reaching us wherever we go. What is good for a camel is good for an Arab, so says the Prince of the Faithful. There are too many obstacles between here and Egypt for his liking, but I say he is wrong. With that Amur turned and haranged Caliph Umar al Katab, the most powerful man in the Muslim world, as one might argue over a holiday dinner with a beloved old uncle of different political beliefs. Ammer called the ruler of the Muslim world old fashioned, closed minded, timid, unambitious, and finally the one that stung. Unwilling to spread the word of God. Now the old men gathered around harumphed and frowned and tissed tissed at this, for Amr might have been a companion, as indeed they all were, but he was not the man charged with overseeing how the warriors of the Uma were spent. No one should doubt Umar's commitment to the cause. It was Ali who offered the statement that satisfied both Amur and Umar's honor. If the prince of the faithful says Egypt is too far, it is only because there are still lands where nothing but desert stands between Medina and the unbelievers. The men we send to Egypt would not be able to contribute to those wars, and who knows if we could reinforce Egypt from other fronts in time if that distant campaign were to come to grief. Well, I will not bore you, dear listeners, with a blow by blow of the debate. I will say the invasion of Egypt was deferred to an indefinite later date, and when Ammer accepted defeat, he left the circle of companions to take me on a tour of the city of the Prophet, showing me where the messenger of God and the earliest Muslims had done all the things I had heard and read of them. Ammer also introduced me to the head of the great scriptorium there, whose team were making copies of the Holy Quran all day and all night. Even if they had boasted ten times as many scribes, they still could not have kept up with demand. My own small contributions to their cause were celebrated out of all proportion to their worth, and I was given a standing invitation to join them in their holy labor if and when I ever found myself back in Medina. Soon enough, Ammer and I were back on the caravan route north, first to Ala, then on into the Holy Land. With the Roman threat all but neutralized in Palestine, Amur took to reorganizing the province to support a warrior aristocracy of his followers. He wanted his Ghazis to be ready at a moment's notice to go out and fight in the name of God. With my administrative assistance, Ammer kept his warriors of God fed and supported by locals of all faiths, who would be allowed to go on as they had gone on before, as long as they paid their jizya and contributed to the meager provisions needed to keep an Arab in his saddle. I worked hard every moment between the five daily prayers to write down Ammer's orders, tally his figures, analyze his policies, and communicate his will to his subjects. I was the administrator who made his governorship possible. For all my wizardry with numbers and deep understanding of every facet of his business as his personal secretary, I somehow did not notice as Amr's personal retinue grew from a few hundred to a few thousand as we moved from place to place. Then one day I looked up from my work to realize we were well south and west of Gaza, and we were riding towards the setting sun. Where are we going? I asked the Sheik. Has Caliph Umar told us to go to Egypt after all? I have written to him, asking for permission. I expect an answer any day now, Amur said. You wrote a letter yourself? As his secretary I had been handling all his correspondence for quite some time. Yes. I do know how to write myself, Muhammad al Rumi. Long before I met you, I did all my own writing. I am quite an impressive man, Amr Ibn al As boasted, mocking me. And how many men are with us as we invade Egypt? I asked, looking around at the small army on the march, each man with his camels, his horses, his wives, and his children. Oh, not many, not many. Thirty five hundred or so, Amur said, reaching down to rub his camel's neck. Thirty five hundred men to invade Egypt, I said, trying to remember how many garrisons there were in Egypt, and if even one of them had less than thirty five hundred Roman soldiers within its walls. If God wills it, no army can oppose us, Ammer said. And if God does not will it, I asked. Well, he can explain his reasoning to me in person when I meet him in paradise, Amur laughed. With that he tutted at his camel, and flicked his riding crop to speed the beast out of easy conversation distance with me. The next day a letter did arrive by camel courier from Medina, bearing the seal of Caliph Umar. The courier and I took it to Amur at once. Orders from the Caliph, I exclaimed. Amur cast an eye up to the sky. Time for prayers, I think. Our small army dismounted, did our ablutions with sand for lack of ready water, and Amur led us in prayer. When we were done, I reminded him of the letter. Put it in the panier with the other correspondents. We will review it when we make camp tonight. That night, Ammer led us again in evening prayers. When I reminded him of the letter afterwards he said Tomorrow, tomorrow I am tired from a long day's ride, as are you, I'm sure. Whatever the Prince of the Faithful has to say can wait one more day. We rode west all through the next day, stopping only for morning, noon, and afternoon prayers. I reminded Sheik Amar ibn Alas frequently about the letter, but he waved me off and delayed me. Finally, as we were pitching our tents in the fading light of the next day's sunset he said Go on then, read it to me. I snapped the seal, unrolled the scroll, and scanned the letter quickly, for Amr never liked to hear all the flowery phrases when I could give him the gist of it. The Prince of the Faithful says he continues to have grave doubts about invading Egypt, but he acknowledges you may have a clearer picture of things from where you stand in Palestine than he does in the city of the Prophet. He says if you are still in Palestine, you are to remain in place and send him fresh intelligence about what makes you ask again to invade Egypt. If you are already in Egypt, he tells you to go with God. Amur nodded with a serious and respectful expression at hearing the words of the caliph. Then he turned to one of the local Bedouin who had been guiding us across the desert. You there, are we in Egypt or Palestine right now? We are in Egypt, companion of the Prophet, the Bedouin replied. There you have it, Amur said to me. Onwards to the Nile then. Were we in Egypt when this letter first found us? I demanded. Amir and the Bedouin both gave me the shrug of men who neither knew nor cared about the answer to my question. Thirty five hundred men is not enough men to conquer the richest province in the Roman Empire, I protested. You better write a letter and tell Caliph Umar that, Amur suggested. You don't think the letter would be better coming from your own hand? I asked. Why, Mohammed Al Rumi, you know I never write my own letters, Amir chided me, his grin both playful and menacing. He had his war, and God must surely be riding with us, or we were all doomed. I wrote the letter before I bothered to pitch my tent. I needed the setting sun's last light to make sure my calligraphy was suitable for the most powerful man in Islam. I could secure my pegs and poles by starlight or lamplight if need be, but calling for reinforcements lucidly was a far more important task. And so we rode into Egypt. The first border fort we encountered was an insurmountable obstacle to my eyes, for the Arabs had no siege weaponry or notion of siege craft in those days. Indeed, one of the first battles Muhammad, peace be upon him, ever won, centered round the unwillingness of his Meccan foes, including a then pagan Amr ibn al As, to deal with a hastily dug ditch. Still, the foolish Roman garrison commander led a sally out of his fort, and when we repulsed his reckless charge, enough of our Arab warriors followed his retreating soldiers through the gates to hold them open for the rest of us. When the fighting was done, we thirty five hundred screamed ourselves hoarse praising God for his greatness and the greatness of the quest he had granted unto us. We rode on again until we were met by an army of Romans who had marched out into the desert to stop us. In a parlay before battle commenced, Ammer gave the Romans three options become Muslim, pay the jizya, or fight. Would you believe the split command actually took time to debate between those three options? Well, eventually the Romans found enough backbone to fight, but by then the day was all but done. Under cover of darkness, Ammer ordered the bulk of our army to fall back while leaving detachments encamped behind dunes flanking the Roman camp. The next morning the Romans advanced across the sands to catch us, but by the time they were within arrow shot of our main force they discovered Arab cavalry behind them screaming God is great, God is great, God is great. The Romans scattered and ran like frightened sheep, and my Arab friends took great joy in rounding them up piecemeal, some for slaughter, some for slavery, and some just to rob them of their arms, armor, and jewelry before sending them on their way on foot across the desert. We let more get away than I thought wise, but Amur assured me God is merciful. With that we rode on to Babylon, a great fortress built where the Nile breaks up into its delta near the ancient city of Memphis. Babylon had been named by the Persian conquerors of Egypt centuries earlier who hoped to make their new fortress on the Nile the equal of its namesake on the Tigris. It never attained that status, but it was still the most important garrison in Egypt other than the one in Alexandria. If the border fort we had stormed earlier can be likened to a peasant's shack, Babylon would be a governor's palace. Its walls were sixty feet tall, and studded with turrets and towers. It was surrounded by ditches and berms and other obstacles to break up our assaults and channel attackers into killing fields of archers and wall mounted artillery. We would soon learn the Romans inside Babylon outnumbered us more than five to one. Our thirty five hundred pitched our tents in a rough semblance of a siege line, and then we prayed. Amr ibn al As led our worship five times a day, and between prayers he and I both wrote letters to anyone we could think of. Caliph Umar, other companions of the Prophet, friends from his time in Palestine and Syria, even old trading partners from before his embrace of Islam. Then one day, out of the sand stretching out to the east, fifteen thousand Arabs rode across the desert and joined our camp. In moving at the best possible speed, they had somehow outpaced whatever advance word they may have tried to send us. We did not complain. Whether it was God's will or our letters, or the sense that great plunder was about to be had, we now had an army to be respected. The Roman governor came out to parlay with us as our reinforcements pitched their tents, and I was asked to interpret. There was no need for a translator, though. Every one of the Arab commanders present could read the fear on the man's face as plain as day, even if his Greek and Coptic were gibberish to them. He wants permission to cross through our siege lines, I said. He wants to go back to Constantinople and beg the Emperor's permission to surrender Babylon to us. Surrender Egypt to us, Amr ibn al As corrected me. I relayed the correction to the Roman coward, who swallowed and nodded. Go with God, then, Amr ibn al As dismissed the fellow with a wave of his hand. It did not go exactly as we might have hoped, of course, but the governor did sail back to Constantinople and asked the ailing emperor Heracles. For permission to surrender Egypt to the Muslims. The emperor clapped his governor in irons for abandoning the breadbasket of the Empire in its hour of need, but when word of the arrest made it to Egypt, we also learned that no help was coming to the garrison inside Babylon either. Our Muslim brothers harried the Romans everywhere, and no relief force could be spared for Egypt. Well, the siege went on for months, and there was also much raiding and fighting in the surrounding countryside, but I do not need to tell you all the little details of it. I will say in the end, a great and famous warrior of God, already a hero of a dozen great battles, led a night attack with ladders. He took the walls around either side of a gate, and then he let our eighteen thousand Ghazis inside just as dawn was breaking. Amr ibn Al As spared the lives of those among the garrison who threw down their arms when they realized all was lost, for God is merciful. After the battle, as we were striking our tents to ride on to Alexandria, Amar ibn Alas was amused to discover he had been in one place for so long that a bird had made a nest atop his highest pole. I never deny anyone the hospitality of my tent, he said grandly, and he rode on, leaving the tent where it stood for the bird's exclusive use. Sometimes he slept in my tent, and other times with other friends. As often as possible, though, he slept under the stars. He was on a mission from God, and he liked the idea of the stars watching him go about God's work. We arrived at Alexandria after a tricky crossing of the Nile. Now we found ourselves facing the second greatest city in the Roman Empire, and looking at it from the landward side was a truly intimidating thing for people who still had no real siege craft, let alone siege engines. For six months we sat there, just out of range of Alexandria's wall mounted artillery. Alexandria could be supplied from the sea at great expense, but that was not its role in the Empire. Alexandria was where the great grain ships were loaded to send wheat to Constantinople. Without Alexandria, the Emperor Heraclius struggled mightily to feed the mob who populated his capital. How much more could he afford to feed the mob of Alexandria, a city almost as big and on the far side of his realm? Eventually he released the arrested governor, who had deep ties to the church in Egypt, to try to produce a grassroots resistance movement among the local populace. Instead, the coward negotiated with us what life would be like for Christian Egyptians under a future Muslim governor, and then he surrendered Alexandria to us to seal a favorable bargain. Amr ibn al Ass led us in prayer to thank God for our victory. When he was done, he gathered his commanders and clerks around him to begin the hard work of governing Egypt. I had my wax tablet at the ready to take notes, but he surprised me by saying, Muhammad al Rumi, go and tell Caliph Umar that Alexandria is ours. We have captured Egypt. Me? I asked, looking around at all the other better candidates for the job. Yes, Amar ibn al As smiled. You want me to ride to Medina and tell the Prince of the Faithful that we have conquered Egypt? I asked again. The tent was full of hardy Bedouins and Arab Gazis, any one of whom had both a better claim to the honor and a better chance of making the long journey by camel in good time than I did. Yes. They know who you are in Medina, and you have been with me since the beginning. I choose you to represent me, Amir said. But who will help you divide the booty in Alexandria? Who will help you govern the city? I asked, thinking of all the administrative work still to be done. Mohammed El Rumi, Alexandria is full of bureaucrats who just found themselves unemployed. I will not lack for willing helpers while you are away, Amr laughed. But but I stammered. Are you a good Arab or aren't you? Amr Ibn El As asked, and finally, as the men around me understood our commander's line of thinking, they all laughed and laughed. It was a happy day, and they would be even happier giving me a task to do that they could all do easily, but I would find hard. They knew I was a good Muslim, but was I a good Arab? I was no kind of Arab at all, of course, but I dressed like one, and spoke like one, and ate like one. I suppose I had even conquered Egypt like one. Why not send me off on a journey across four deserts to tell the most powerful man in my faith that we had achieved God's will in Egypt, especially if my comrades would smile at the thought as I went, and hold me in even higher esteem upon my return. Yes, I agreed to do it, and I left at once, for even after a siege of six months I had so few personal possessions in my tent that packing took no more than a few moments. I rode from Alexandria to the Nile by horse, crossed by ferry, and then took a camel from the Arabs still camping outside the walls of Babylon. I then rode that camel as fast as its legs would take it, day after day to the Sinai, and then Ala, and then finally Medina. I stopped only for water and food I could eat while riding. When my camel insisted on rest, I took someone else's camel if there was one to be found. I rode as fast as I could as far as I could, by day and by night, for I would not have it told to Amr Ibn al As and our comrades that I had dallied on my mission. I arrived in Medina after a long and wearying journey, and I rode right up to the humble, mud brick two room home of the caliph. I got down off my camel and walked through his open front door, and said, We have taken Egypt. Praise God, was Umar's only reply. He gave me a quick embrace and left me there, walking over to the mosque to lead the faithful in prayer of thanksgiving for Allah's continued blessings. I sank down to the ground where I stood, and fell asleep sitting upright with my back to the caliph's wall. Upon his return, he woke me up with some bread and a cup of lentil soup. Tell me more, he said. I gave him the news as simply as I could, and he listened and nodded, listened and nodded. When I was done, he asked, You keep his ledgers. Has Amr ibn al As grown very rich in the service of God? I did not think through the ramifications of the most powerful man in the world, barefoot and dressed in an old, patched, homespun robe, asking me if my friend had prospered as the conqueror of Egypt. Instead I just said he has, praise God. Praise God, Caliph Umar repeated politely, but his eyebrows bunched together as he thought through how to deal with the thorny problem of the avarice of men, even godly men, as they went about God's business. Let me pause here, dear listeners, and tell another story about Caliph Umar al Katab that illustrates how humbly he lived and how seriously he worried about the temptation to grow rich while doing God's work. While I have already spoken very briefly about the Arabs fighting in Iraq, I should be clear that we Muslims were having even more success against the Sassanids in the east than we were against the Romans to the north and west. In fact, whereas no Arab army would ever capture Constantinople despite several attempts, the Sassanids great capital of Tisiphon on the Euphrates had already fallen to Muslim Gazes by the time Amar and I were in Egypt. When the royal palace of the House of Sassan was looted, two great chests of jewels were sent back to Medina as part of the one fifth share of war booty given to further the cause of Islam. Each of these chests was worth an emperor's ransom, but they crossed the Arabian desert without any fear of bandits, for those bandits had all heard the word of God, and now fought to spread the faith out into the world. The chests were soon delivered to Caliph Umar himself, set down right in the front room of his two room house. For the faithful Caliph, the camel courier explained. Umar opened up the chest and gazed down into the heaped jewels, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, rubies, pearls, who knew what else. Either box could fund years of warfare between empires. A single stone chosen at random from among the thousands would make any man comfortable for the rest of his days. Caliph Umar went to bed that night, but he could not sleep a wink. The next morning he summoned back the camel courier and said, Return these jewels to Iraq, and sell them. Let the proceeds go to fund that war, and to support the widows of the men who die in God's service. So the rider crossed the Arabian desert again, unmolested, again, and sold the chest to the first rich man he could find. That rich man turned around at once to sell one of the chests for what he had paid for both, and then he spent the rest of his life selling jewels one by one from the second chest. He died a very, very wealthy man indeed. Just the thought that someone might think Caliph Umar capable of personally profiting from his holy mission led him to throw away an unimaginable fortune that had spent only a single night under his humble roof. Yes, Caliph Umar took the sin of personal enrichment in the service of God very seriously, and he led by irrefutable example. Amir's growing wealth must have bothered him a great deal, and so when I returned to Egypt, a new man rode with me at Umar's express command. We could not ride at the pace I had managed before, for this man was not a fellow to sacrifice comfort for the sake of speed. I admit I did not mind using him as an excuse to slow my return journey, and we passed the time talking about accounting problems and tax issues, for my companion was that strangest of Arabs, a gifted bureaucrat. When we arrived in Alexandria, the caliph's bureaucrat handed over a great stack of written orders from Umar, not the least of which was a clear instruction that the small town that had sprung up around our siege camp outside the walls of Babylon should be the capital of Muslim Egypt, and not Alexandria. Why? Because Alexandria was on the far side of the Nile from Medina, and the Caliph never wanted his Arab warriors to have a body of water between them and him. If it is bad for camels, it is bad for Arabs, remember? Because of that simple desert bias, the magnificent metropolis of Alexandria became the second city of Egypt just twenty eight years shy of its thousandth birthday, and an empty patch of sand between Babylon and Memphis called Fustat, later Cairo, became the capital city of a great and ancient land. We spent the day going through Caliph Umar's proclamations, until finally we came to Amr ibn al Ass's finances. I hear you have grown rich during your conquest and governorship of Egypt. The bureaucrat did not make it a question. God has been good to me, Amr ibn al Ass agreed. Caliph Umar wants half of all you own, so that he may distribute it to the poor, to the faithful, to the widows of the fallen, and so you may be reminded that you do what you do for God's glory, not your own. Amr ibn al Ass looked up at the sky for a moment as he collected his thoughts. If God wills it, was his eventual reply. Dear listeners, would you believe not only that the caliph commanded that of the conqueror of Egypt, but the conqueror of Egypt obeyed? What other emperor and general ever had such an exchange? Oh, there was a little bit of belly aching in the days to come. Some small protest from Amur when a particularly cherished piece of booty was added to the heap to go rather than to stay, but the bureaucrat pointed out, were it not for God and Islam, you would still be in Mecca milking your goats right now. There was no arguing with that, or so I thought. The comet must have stuck with Amur, though. No sooner had the bureaucrat ridden away at the head of a long caravan of treasure bound for Medina, than my friend turned to me and said That thing about what Islam has done for me is true, and praise God that I am here in Egypt and not still back in Mecca. But at least if I was milking my goats instead of conquering the world, I would be allowed to keep the whole pail of milk when I was done. He laughed, and I laughed, and I thought it was a pretty good way to lighten the moment as half of his wealth rode off into the desert sands never to be seen again. But I understand now my friend was not really joking. For all his piety, for all his passionate faith, there was some part of Amur ibn al As that was also hungry for the glories and powers of this world. What I have just described to you, dear listeners, is only the first of three times he would conquer Egypt, and each time would be a little less for God and a little more for Amar Ibn Al As. Let me tell you how that came to be, and how the bloom came off the rose as I remember my first embrace of Islam. You have been listening to the Tape Recorder Trilogy Podcast, and there is a lot more to come. Here are a few ways you can help support this program. First, if you are enjoying it, please tell someone about it. Audio dramas live and die on word of mouth, so please help spread the word. This may be the third and final season, but I plan to leave the series up as long as people continue to take an interest in it. Second, please like it, review it, and subscribe to it wherever you find your podcasts. We want to teach the algorithm that this show is worth people's time. Third, this podcast is based on the novel's Beginning, Middle, and End by Jeff Mix available on Amazon. If you want a copy of the story for yourselves, that would be so appreciated. Fourth, I have a link to a typeform survey in the show notes for each episode. Tell me a little about yourself and feel free to ask me questions. I have already done a QA mailbag episode during the run of this series, and I probably will do another one in a little while once people have had a chance to find it and enjoy the show after the final episode airs. Fifth, while this may be the final season of the Tape Recorder trilogy podcast, I already have plans for two more shows, so please remain subscribed to this channel for updates on those when they are ready to be shared. Finally, while I don't want to break up the episode with ads, I do have a Patreon account with extra content for those of you who are willing to support this channel with a donation. A link to that is also in the show notes. With that said, thank you so much for your time and attention, and I look forward to you enjoying the next episode soon.