Jerusalem: The Biography

† Omar ordered the retirement of Khaled, victor of Yarmuk, after hearing about a wine-soaked bathhouse orgy in which a poet sang of the general’s heroics. Khaled died of plague though today’s Khalidi family claim descent from him. One of Muhammad’s early supporters had been a woman named Nusaybah who lost two sons and a leg fighting for the Prophet. Now Nusaybah’s brother,Ubadah ibn al-Samit, arrived with Omar, who is said to have appointed him as a judge in Jerusalem, and custodian of the Holy Sepulchre and of the Rock. His descendants, the Nusseibeh family, are still Custodians of the Holy Sepulchre in 2010 (see the Epilogue).