text:  For the early caliphs did not conquer Syria and other vast provinces of the Roman empire because they had a quarrel with the Caesars who represented Christendom; but on the contrary they had a quarrel with the Caesars because they had conquered Syria or at the most the conquest and the feud (if not always lying in that exact succession as cause and effect) were joint effects from a common cause which cause was imperishable as death or the ocean and as deep as are the fountains of animal life