While passing by thus cursorily the military details of connected outlying conquest, there is one episode which I may mention, as containing a curious relation of miraculous interposition, such as we rarely meet with in the tradition of events subsequent to the Prophet’s death. The warrior Saria had long besieged with inadequate force the stronghold Darâbgird in Kermân, when a band of Kurds came suddenly down to its relief. The small Arab army, taken thus on both sides, would have been cut to pieces, had not Saria, warned by a cry from heaven, promptly sought refuge upon a hill at his rear. Omar on that very day (so the tradition runs), as he conducted the Friday service in the Great Mosque at Medîna, saw distinctly in a vision the impending disaster, and trembling for his safety, cried aloud, ‘To the hill, O Saria! to the hill!’ It was this voice which reached Saria, clear from the sky, just in time to enable him to make good his retreat to the hill, from whence, having rallied his troops, he turned again and discomfited the enemy. Omar, we are told, related the whole affair of the retreat and subsequent victory, at the moment it occurred; and with this the courier’s report, received several weeks after, was found exactly to tally.[393] CHAPTER XXVII. THE LATER YEARS OF OMAR’S REIGN--DOMESTIC EVENTS. A.H. XVII.-XXIII. A.D. 638–644. [Sidenote: Quiet in Syria, Arabia, and Egypt.] While the arms of Islam were thus rapidly reducing province after province in the East to the sway of Omar from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean, the wave of conquest was for the time calmed down in Asia Minor. There had now for some time prevailed a period of comparative quiet. After the death of Heraclius there was no spirit left in the Byzantine empire to continue the struggle either by land or by sea. Desultory attempts were made, indeed, at intervals upon the coast; but they were followed by no lasting success.[394] Muâvia was busy meanwhile consolidating the administration of Syria; and, with a sagacious foresight, strengthening his hold upon the provinces against the contingencies of the future. Elsewhere peace prevailed. Shorahbîl ruled over the district of the Jordan. Amru maintained a firm government in Egypt; and, pushing a chronic warfare against the native tribes and the Roman settlements on the coast of Africa, gradually extended the boundaries of Islam towards the West. Arabia, still pouring forth its unquiet spirits to fight in the wars abroad, was tranquil at home under its various governors. [Sidenote: Omar visits Mecca, and founds Grand Square around Kâaba.]