While Omar lived the hand of persecution was in good measure stayed, but worked in full vigor as soon as he was dead. Christians were certain neither of their homes nor of their churches. Their taxes were increased to the point of exhaustion. They could not mount a horse nor bear a weapon. A leather girdle must always show their subjection. No Arabic word must fall from their lips, nor could they speak the name of their own Patriarch without permission. [Sidenote: _Hardships Stimulate Pilgrimages_] These hardships awakened the sympathy of the Christian world, and stimulated many to go to the Holy Land that they then might be "accounted worthy to suffer with Christ." Arculphus and Antoninus, of Plaisance, reached sainthood by making this journey and certifying to the Western Churches the persecutions of the Christians in the Holy Land. [Sidenote: _Haroun al Raschid Just_] Yet truth compels the statement that the Mohammedans were not always unjust or unkind. Intervals of peace came to cheer those who wept, and the reign of Haroun al Raschid offered them the largest hope. The great Charles was now great enough, even in Eastern eyes, to secure liberty and peace to Christians in far-off Palestine, and was treated as an equal through embassies and presents by the great Caliph. Never could a monarch have received a more welcome present than did Charlemagne when the Caliph sent him the keys of the Holy Sepulcher. [Sidenote: _Christ Expected 1000 A. D._] It is also to be remembered that prophecy had been interpreted to mean that in the year 1000 A. D. Christ would appear and set up His millennial kingdom. This greatly stimulated the pilgrimages to the Holy Land, as it did all other phases of devotion. Thousands felt that it would be well to be at the scene of the cross and of the resurrection when Christ came with His angels. It were well they should be near where He ascended, whether they were living or dead when He came. [Sidenote: _Haroun Dead Persecution Follows_] Persecutions followed the death of the great Caliph, particularly in the sultanate of Egypt. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was destroyed. Other Christian buildings shared the same fate. Then as now, the Jews had to suffer from suspicions created by their voluntary segregation as well as by their forced isolation. The Christians in France heard that the French Jews had sent word to the Sultan Hakim that a great Christian invasion of the Holy Land was intended. This led to a revenge, the justice of which in any degree remains unsettled to this day. [Sidenote: _Toll for Entering Jerusalem_]