After Khusrau II’s murder of the chief of the tribe of Lakhm and its loss of imperial support, “all the Arabs of the Byzantine and Persian realms revolted and dispersed, each group acting according to his own will,” observed one chronicler, “and they became powerful and caused much trouble in the provinces.” For example, at Dhu Qar near Kufa, around the year 610, tribal groups loyal to the Lakhmids confronted and defeated other tribes that were allies of the Persians. It was probably a very minor encounter and only involved Arab factions, but it was later celebrated as the first victory of the Arabs over the Persians. Matters worsened when civil war broke out after the death of Khusrau II in 628 and reached a nadir in June 630 when the empress Boran came to the throne. Among the neighboring Arabs the word went around that
MAP 2.3 Iraq and West Iran.
“the Persians no longer have a king, they have sought refuge in a woman” and many took to pillaging the frontier lands of the empire.21 Some men from northeast Arabian tribes went and joined those who were massing on the borders of Persia and started raiding the local nobles, seizing whatever they could. Later Muslim historians maintain that Abu Bakr participated in the planning of these attacks, but this is clearly a retrospective attempt to bring all fighting against the empires under the banner of Muhammad’s community. They also wanted to provide a neat chronological schema: the mutiny of the tribes of
Arabia in year eleven of the community (632-33) had first to be suppressed before the conquests could be initiated in year twelve (633-34). However, since these historians also mention that Persian rulers of the period 628-32 were on the throne at the time of these raids, it is evident that, as was the case with the Levant, the various tribes living on the imperial frontiers had already begun to take advantage of the empire’s weakness to plunder the outlying areas long before Muhammad’s west Arabian coalition became involved.
The early clashes were principally between Arab tribes of different affiliations, and only local Persian officials were involved. At the oasis town of 'Ayn al-Tamr in southwest Iraq, for instance, a Persian garrison backed up by a division of Arab recruits levied from the tribes of Namir, Taghlib, and lyad opposed the general dispatched by Abu Bakr, namely, Khalid ibn al-Walid. However, as the raids snowballed, the matter came to the notice of the regime’s leaders and of contemporary chroniclers. We are lucky that an Armenian historian writing shortly after 660, referred to by modern scholars as Sebeos, took an interest and gave an account which, supplemented by a couple of other writers, allows us to get a reasonable picture of the march of events.22 As happened in Syria, the success of minor skirmishes in the late 620s and early 630s paved the way for a large-scale invasion in 636, involving considerable numbers of tribesmen from the Arabian Peninsula. The invaders marched from central Arabia through the endless flat stony wastes of northeast Arabia until eventually reaching the beginning of the fertile alluvial lands of lower Iraq. Meeting little resistance, they pushed on in the direction of the Persian capital, Seleucia-Ctesiphon. This was a huge sprawling settlement established on both sides of the river Tigris, some twenty miles south of modern Baghdad, and comprising numerous palaces built in the course of the many centuries of the city’s life. The Arabs laid siege to it through the winter of 636-37, but in the meantime Rustam, the prince of Media (northwest Iran), had assembled a huge army, including contingents from Armenia, Albania (modern north Azerbaijan), and Siunik (modern south Armenia). Such was the size and might of the army that Rustam, so it was said, “haughtily expected to trample all the southerners underfoot.” The emperor Yazdgird participated too, rallying the troops with encouraging words and distributing stipends.
In the autumn of 637 the Persian army got under way. They crossed the river Tigris and slowly and inexorably drove the Arabs back, defeating them in the odd pitched battle (one is recorded in Muslim sources under the name of the Battle of the Bridge), until eventually they forced them right back to “their own borders,” to the west bank of the Euphrates. Both sides then encamped there, by the village of Qadash (Arabic: Qadisiyya), a short distance to the south of Hira. In an initial encounter the Arabs were worsted, but a few days later they received reinforcements from Arabia of “a multitude of cavalry and 20,000 infantry” and thus heartened “they sped forward, covered with shields, eager to fight against the Persian troops.” This seemed to throw the Persian army into confusion and many fled. A general rout ensued and many of the nobles were killed, including the princes of Armenia, Siunik, and Media. Some, such as Juansher, king of Albania, only escaped by hurling themselves headlong into the river Euphrates and swimming for their lives to the opposite bank. The engagement, referred to as the Battle of Qadisiyya in Muslim sources, took place on January 6, 638, and, like the battle of Yarmuk in the Levant, was retrospectively perceived as a turning point in the Arab conquest of the Persian Empire. It brought great fame to the key Arab general, Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, of the tribe of Quraysh, and it also brought immortality to Rustam, who is celebrated in the Persian national epic as a valiant but tragic hero, the last great noble knight of the Persian Empire, sorrowfully predicting that after him “lineage and honour will count for naught.”
Having gained the upper hand, the Arabs now went back on the offensive. In the course of 638 they established control over lower Iraq and, so one chronicler informs us, “they began to collect the taxes.”23 This allowed them to keep their men fully fed and equipped, and, after subduing the area around Seleucia-Ctesiphon, they renewed their siege of the capital itself, maintaining their position for at least six months. Seeing that the situation in the capital was hopeless, Emperor Yazdgird arranged for the new general of the army of Media, Khurrazad, who was the brother of Rustam, to effect an evacuation operation. The plan was to get the emperor out of Seleucia-Ctesiphon to the comparative safety of a royal estate some seventy miles to the northeast. With much haste the contents of the treasury were packed up and the inhabitants of the capital assembled, and Khurrazad and his men led out the procession in the direction of their new home. On the way, however, they were unexpectedly attacked by a contingent of Arabs that had managed to make it across the river Tigris. A short battle ensued (probably that known as the Battle of Jalula’ in the Muslim sources), but the Persian troops, jittery after their dismal defeat at Qadash, quickly gave up the fight and fled, obliging Yazdgird to take to his heels along with them. The Arabs appropriated the forsaken wealth and returned with it to the newly captured Seleucia-Ctesiphon. Yazdgird and his retinue hurried on to seek refuge in the Zagros mountain range (Figure 2.4), which protected Iran from any army marching from the plains of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, and stopped off on the way at the ancient city of Hulwan. In the course of the year 640 he was continually on the move, seeking a place where he could obtain a breathing space and the time to rally an army. He descended from the mountains, traveling southeast to Isfahan and then southward to Istakhr, the capital of Fars, which was the heartland and homeland of the Sasanian dynasty, where he knew he could count on the support of the local army.
FIGURE 2.4 View of Zagros Mountains from the plains of Iraq. © Hugh Kennedy.
World History
