And I would have you know that the fighting for religion is an act of obedience to God." On the first encounter, Khaled, the Saracen general, hard pressed, lifted up his hands in the midst of his army and said: "O God! these vile wretches pray with idolatrous expressions and take to themselves another God besides thee, but we acknowledge thy unity and affirm that there is no other God but thee alone.

Help us, we beseech thee, for the sake of thy prophet Mohammed, against these idolaters." On the part of the Saracens the conquest of Syria was conducted with ferocious piety.
The belief of the Syrian Christians aroused in their antagonists sentiments of horror and indignation.

"I will cleave the skull of any blaspheming idolater who says that the Most Holy God, the Almighty and Eternal, has begotten a son." The Khalif Omar, who took Jerusalem, commences a letter to Heraclius, the Roman emperor: "In the name of the most merciful God! Praise be to God, the Lord of this and of the other world, who has neither female consort nor son." The Saracens nicknamed the Christians "Associators," because they joined Mary and Jesus as partners with the Almighty and Most Holy God.
It was not the intention of the khalif to command his army; that duty was devolved on Abou Obeidah nominally, on Khaled in reality.

In a parting review the khalif enjoined on his troops justice, mercy, and the observance of fidelity in their engagements he commanded them to abstain from all frivolous conversation and from wine, and rigorously to observe the hours of prayer; to be kind to the common people among whom they passed, but to show no mercy to their priests.
FALL OF BOZRAH.

Eastward of the river Jordan is Bozrah, a strong town where Mohammed had first met his Nestorian Christian instructors.