ings in exchange for and of the same measure as their old homes, pulled down their old dwellings and helped them to build the new ones. To these soldiers, who received stipends, al-Manṣûr gave fiefs and dwellings.
When al-Mahdi became caliph, he assigned stipends for 2,000 men at al-Maṣṣîṣah but gave them no fiefs, because the city was already manned with troops and volunteers. The periodical contingents [ṭawâliʿ] used to come from Antioch every year until the city was governed by Sâlim al-Barallusi, who assigned in their place[1] stipends for 500 fighters, making a special rate of 10 dînârs for each. Thus the people of the city were multiplied and strengthened. This took place when al-Mahdi held the caliphate.
Muḥammad ibn-Sahm from the sheikhs of the frontier region:—In the days of the "blessed dynasty", the Greeks pressed the inhabitants of al-Maṣṣîṣah so hard that they left the city. After that Ṣâliḥ ibn-ʿAli sent to it Jabril ibn-Yaḥya-l-Bajali who peopled it and made Moslems settle in it in the year 140. Ar-Rashîd[2] built Kafarbaiya; but according to others it was begun in the caliphate of al-Mahdi, and ar-Rashîd changed the plan of its construction and fortified it with a moat. Its inhabitants complained to al-Maʾmûn concerning the rent[3] paid for the houses therein, and he abolished it. The houses were like inns. By order of al-Maʾmûn, a wall was commenced around the city and raised high, but not completed before his death. Al-Muʿtaṣim-Billâh ordered that the wall be finished and raised to its proper height.
Al-Muthaḳḳab. Al-Muthaḳḳab[4] was fortified by Hishâm
