More on the Arab Conquest as an Act of Love & Generosity

Here is another account from Andrew Palmer's West Syrian Chronicles about the kind, loving, and generous Arab conquests of the seventh century.

This account is from the year 637 CE:

. . . and in January they took the word for their lives, (did) [the sons of] Emesa, and many villages were ruined with killing by [the Arabs of] Muhammad and a great number of people were killed and captives [were taken] from Galilee as far as Beth . . . . . and those Arabs pitched camp beside [Damascus?]. . .
[Andrew Palmer, ed. & tr., The Seventh Century in the West Syrian Chronicles (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press 1993), p 1]

A depressing series of events. But Edward Sa`id doesn't like the way Western travelers, writers, and scholars have depicted the noble Arab. However, this and the previous post on this blog present accounts from Palmer's book that were written by native Middle Eastern folk, by Orientals. I wonder what Sa`id said about this book, or would have said about it had he been aware of it. Emesa, located in central Syria, is now called Homs or Hims. Apparently the manuscript was in poor condition, forcing Palmer to try to infer which word or words may have originally been in places where the manuscript was defective. In the account quoted from Palmer here, the brackets and words in them are from Palmer, not me, although on other posts the brackets and their contents are mine.

UPDATING: Readers of Spanish can find on the previous post [of 4-26-2007], as an updating, a Spanish version of the passage from the ancient Syriac chronicle of 640CE given in two English versions on that post.
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Coming: The Louvre on Islam as replacing the ancient East, Jews in Jerusalem and Hebron, peace follies, propaganda, etc.