Last month the Muslims of Homs in Syria held a rally calling for a return of the Khilafah to replace the tyranny and oppression of Bashar al-Assad’s regime. This is not the first time Syria (ash-Sham) has been ruled by a tyrannical ruler. When Homs was first opened to Islam during the time of Khaleefah Umar bin al-Khattab, ash-Sham was part of the Byzantine Empire under the leadership of Emperor Heraclius. A few years after Homs was conquered and opened to Islam the Muslims were forced in to a temporary retreat back to Damascus. Faced with being ruled again by the Byzantines a similar call for the Khilafah was heard in Homs but this time from the Christian dhimmi. Although these Christians had only lived under the Khilafah for a short period of time, compared to years living under the oppressive Byzantine Empire, they preferred the Islamic rule. Abu ‘Ubaydah, Amir of Jihad in Syria ordered his commander Habeeb ibn Maslamah, “Give back to the local people with whom we made a treaty (Christian dhimmi) what we took … Continue reading Christians of Homs under the Caliphate: ‘Your rule and justice are dearer to us than the oppression that we used to suffer.’