When Mahomet heard that the feudatories were massed under the bidding of Heraclius at Hims, he realised there was no time to be lost.

Central Arabia was an unknown country, inhabited by marauding tribes in a constant state of political flux; while Hira, the kingdom to the east of the desert on the banks of the Euphrates, had become a satrapy of Persia early in the century in which Mahomet lived, and Heraclius by frequent inroads had reduced the kingdom of Palmyra to impotence.

The columns were of precious marbles, stripped from Pagan palaces and temples; and the roof was tiled with plates of gilded bronze, torn in the age of Heraclius from the shrine of Venus and of Roma on the Sacred Way.

Thus the emperor Heraclius in the war against the Persians, being at a loss whether to advance or retreat, commanded a public fast for three days, at the end of which he applied to the four Gospels, and opened upon a text which he regarded as an oracular intimation to winter in Albania.

In the year 617 A.D. Persian warriors advanced to the walls of Constantinople, and drove the Emperor Heraclius to despair.