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.