How Christians were regarded at this time we may learn from the books of canon law of this period, and that immediately following upon it. They were considered _infidels_ in the Moslem sense of the word, and were protected only by the payment of a poll tax, which gave them certain rights as subjects. The most distinguished jurist of the Shafiʾite sect, An-Nawawi, who taught at Damascus in 1267, lays down the law[12] as follows: “An infidel who has to pay his poll tax should be treated by the tax collector with disdain; the collector remaining seated and the infidel standing before him, the head bent and the body bowed. The infidel should personally place the money in the balance, while the collector holds him by the beard and strikes him upon both cheeks. Infidels should be forbidden to have houses higher than those of their Moslem neighbours, or even to have them as high; a rule, however, that does not apply to the infidels who inhabit a separate quarter. An infidel subject of our Sovereign may not ride a horse; but a donkey or a mule is permitted him, whatever may be its value. He must use an _ikaf_, and wooden spurs, those of iron being forbidden him, as well as a saddle. He must go to the side of the road to let a Moslem pass. He must not be treated as a person of importance, nor given the first place at a gathering. He should be distinguished by a suit of coloured cloth and a girdle outside his clothes. If he enters a bathing house where there are Moslems, or if he undresses anywhere else in their presence, the infidel should wear round his neck an iron or leaden necklace, or some other mark of servitude.[13] He is forbidden to offend Moslems, either by making them hear his false doctrines, or by speaking aloud of Esdras or of the Messiah, or by ostentatiously drinking wine or eating pork. And infidels are forbidden to sound the bells of their churches or of their synagogues, or celebrate ostentatiously their sacrilegious rites.”[14] “The history of Christian communities,” says Margoliouth,[15] “under Moslem rule cannot be adequately written; the members of those communities had no opportunity of describing their condition safely, and the Moslems naturally devote little space to their concerns. Generally speaking, they seem to have been regarded as certain old Greek and Roman sages regarded women: as a necessary annoyance. Owing to their being unarmed their prosperity was always hazardous; and though it is true that this was the case with all the subjects of a despotic state under an irresponsible ruler, the non-Moslem population was at the mercy of the mob as well as of the sovereign; they were likely scapegoats whenever there was distress, and even in the best governed countries periods of distress frequently arose.”