In the fifteenth year after the Prophet Muhammad’s migration from Mecca to Medina - 636 in our
calendar – the armies of the Rashidun caliphate stood victorious against the Sassanid and
Eastern Roman empires, but these empires were still resisting.
The second season of this series will describe the war in Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Northern Africa
and beyond, as the Muslim armies gear up for more conquest.
Welcome to our second season of videos on the early Muslim expansion, which was crucial
in the creation of the modern world.
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In the previous season, we covered the first stages of the Muslim conquest of the Middle
East.
It started in 633 with the campaign in Mesopotamia against the Sassanid empire by the general
of the Rashidun Caliphate Khalid ibn al-Walid.
After a string of victories that brought him to the border of the Eastern Roman Empire,
Khalid entered Syria and again won a number of decisive battles culminating at the battle
of Yarmouk, which put most of the region under the control of the Caliphate.
In southern Mesopotamia though, the Sassanid empire attempted a counter-attack which led
to the battle of al-Qadisiyyah.
After the battle that continued for days, the Muslim army commanded by Sa’d Ibn Abi
Waqqas defeated Rostam’s Sassanid force.
Amidst the slaughter and unfolding catastrophe at Qadissiyah, the commander of the Persian
centre-right - Jalinus - assumed leadership of the imperial army’s remnant and set about
saving what forces he could.
Assembling a small, elite strike force, he thrust towards the al-Atiq dam and drove a
unit of Muslim troops away before forming a perimeter and holding it.
As Sassanid stragglers withdrew across the dam wall to the other side, Jalinus bravely
repelled many attacks from the Muslims and managed to see most of the remaining troops
to safety, but it was still a painfully small number.
When the last of them were on the canal’s far side, Jalinus had the dam destroyed and
began hastily pulling his men upstream to Najaf before the victors fully turned on him.
Unwilling, however, to give the foe any breathing room, Sa’d Ibn Abi Waqqas dispatched Qa’qa
and Shurahbeel to hunt down scattered Persian units, while cavalry commander Zuhra bin al-Hawiyya
was sent after Jalinus with 300 elite Arab horsemen.
Not deterred by the dam crossing’s destruction, Zuhra and his 300 drove their mounts into
the torrent and forded it before chasing Jalinus’ column upstream.
The latter realised he was being chased and halted with his own cavalry at a nearby bridge,
while the infantry carried on withdrawing all the way to Najaf.
After a short time, the horsemen of Zuhra came across Jalinus’ valiant rear-guard
and charged it, breaking the formation swiftly and provoking its leader into yet another
withdrawal.
His heels constantly bit by Zuhra as he did, Jalinus chose to turn and face the enemy in
a final fight, believing that the best way to stop the pursuit was to kill the leader.
So, he halted his forces, turned about face and arrayed for battle, before personally
riding before his troops and challenging Zuhra to single combat.
Galloping forward atop their horses, the two exhausted commanders fought one another to
decide the issue once and for all, and once again it was the Muslim who came out on top
after a hard-fought struggle.
Jalinus was killed and his cavalry took flight, but many were still caught and slain by Zuhra’s
riders.
By sunset, the 300 reached Najaf, where they halted for the night.
With the aim of conquering prosperous Iraq, which the Muslims believed was the ‘heart
of the world’, Sa’d reorganised his 20,000 troops into five marching corps1 with Zuhra
retaining his advance guard position.
Two weeks after Qadissiyah, he was quickly joined at Najaf by the remainder of the army
and given the order to cross the Euphrates.
Incoming Sassanid reinforcements under Nakheerjan arrived in the area soon after, having been
initially bound for Rostam’s now broken force.
Hearing of the defeat, the reinforcement group halted east of the Euphrates and waited for
new orders from Ctesiphon, which came in the form of Firuzan, a general tasked by Emperor
Yazdegerd with preventing or delaying the seemingly unstoppable advance of the Muslims.
When Firuzan appraised the situation, he decided that his army of fresh and recently defeated
forces under his command wouldn’t be enough to throw the Arabs back.
So, he instead prepared defensive actions at a series of defensible locations and cities
on the road to the Persian capital, so that the great city would have time to fortify.
As his first move, Firuzan ordered the governor of Burs, Busbuhra, to hold his branch of the
Euphrates and gave him some troops to help with the task, while the general and his main
army started massing near Babylon.
When Zuhra’s advance guard neared Burs, the city’s governor rode out to meet him.
In a short battle, the holding force of Sassanid troops was routed and Busbuhra severely wounded.
During the flight, he died from his wounds.
Following this defeat, the new local leader made peace with the Caliphate, agreeing to
provide information and logistical assistance.
From these new allies, Zuhra learned that the formidable main Sassanid army opposing
him was indeed across the Euphrates at Babylon, along with several high nobles.
Zuhra then forwarded this crucial information to Sa’d at Najaf, and waited for the four
corps trailing his own to catch up.
When they did, the Muslims advanced on Babylon in strength and, at some point in December
636, met Firuzan along the river bank and crushed his army in a brief but harsh battle.
One of the defeated generals, Hormuzan, fled south with his contingent to his domain in
Ahwaz, while Firuzan and the remainder withdrew north in good order, leaving garrisons at
Sura and Deir Kab along the way2.
Zuhra again set off in hot pursuit and, despite fierce resistance from the defensive Sassanid
armies in his way, managed to defeat them at Sura, Deir Kab, and Kusa on his relentless
drive to Ctesiphon.
By early January of 637, the Muslim leader neared Vologesocerta - just one of the cities
which made up larger Ctesiphon, where he was again rejoined by the bulk of the army.
To the desert-dwelling Arabs, whose largest urban areas were but a fraction of the size,
the Persian capital was unlike anything most of them had ever witnessed in their lives.
More than just a single city, Ctesiphon had in fact grown to encompass about seven grandiose
population centres which had been constructed and assimilated over the centuries, forming
a true metropolis.
Because of its unique nature, the Persian heartland was dubbed Madain, or ‘The Cities’
in Arabic.
On the Tigris’ western bank stood Seleucia, Vologesocerta and Veh-Ardashir, while Ctesiphon
proper and a number of peripheral hubs were to the east.
Perhaps the most majestic sight for those approaching Arabs during 637 would have been
the 40-meter-tall Arch of Khosrow, an architectural marvel unique in the world at the time.
Although Firuzan hadn’t managed to stop the Muslim advance, his delaying action had
worked, and now the entire western portion of Yazdegerd’s imperial capital was fortified
with a deep ditch, with manned positions at regular intervals.
The Sassanid Shah3 and his advisors also massed a number of ballistae and catapults in the
bounds of Veh-Ardashir which, as the closest sub-city to Ctesiphon proper, was the focus
of their defensive efforts.
Zuhra ordered an attack on Madain shortly after his arrival, but Yazdegerd’s artillery
began launching bolts and throwing giant stones out of Veh-Ardashir and into the Muslim ranks,
causing severe losses and forcing Zuhra’s forces to retreat out of range.
Unable to reply in kind, he sent scouting parties to probe and find a way inside, but
everywhere came across the Persians’ defensive trench and were unable to breach it.
Sa’d arrived at this point and assumed command, swiftly deciding that there was little point
wasting his warriors in careless assaults against such strong defences.
So, instead he established a blockade around all of Madain west of the Tigris and settled
his forces down for a long siege.
However, Sa’d wasn’t content to sit and wait for victory, taking all measures he thought
possible to secure a faster surrender of the unbelievers, primarily by scything away the
western bastion’s food supplies.
To do this, he had his subcommanders conduct raids on the neighboring hinterland, seizing
cattle and sheep for the Muslims’ own uses whilst also sapping the enemy’s resources
by preventing supplies from reaching Veh-Ardashir.
In the process of doing so, Arab cavalry seized thousands of farmers as prisoners of war who,
upon the intercession of a regional leader who had submitted, were freed upon agreeing
to pay the Jizya tax.
In addition, security for their lives and possessions were guaranteed, an act which
won the Muslim invaders considerable good will with the locals.
Throughout the months long siege, Sa’d’s warriors had also been continuously harried
by the sophisticated Sassanid engines of war Yazdegerd’s generals had amassed, although
casualties at their hands remained relatively light.
Unfortunately for the Persians, some of their engineers defected during the course of the
siege and provided their masters with at least 20 novel artillery pieces of their own.
When these contraptions subsequently began sending their own missiles howling into Ctesiphon,
the dense concentration of Sassanid soldiers and civilians inside resulted in them causing
terrible destruction.
The fact that the Muslims had even acquired weaponry of this kind, which had until then
been universally in Persian hands, also badly affected morale.
By mid-March 637 western Madain’s situation was becoming intolerable.
Persian civilians starved to death in the hundreds, while more were reduced to eating
stray cats and dogs to survive.
Beset by such conditions, the Sassanid troops not manning the ditch were concentrated into
a single strike force and led in a desperate sortie beyond their defences.
The Muslims arrayed to meet them in pitched battle and a desperate struggle began.
Zuhra’s corps was in the thick of the action and he himself was wounded by an arrow.
Despite his injury, the valiant Bani Tamin chief led a counterattack and personally slew
the Persian strike force commander, after which the defenders withdrew behind their
ditch.
The savage fighting to repulse the Persian attack was followed by a few hours of eerie
calm, during which a Sassanid officer approached the Muslims with an offer: each belligerent
would retain whatever territory they had captured on their respective sides of the Tigris.
However, these conditions were declined with the reply “There can never be peace between
us until we get honey out of the lemons of Kusa.”
When these peace overtures were rejected, the Persian forces in Veh-Ardashir quietly
withdrew from their positions and pulled back across the Tigris.
Western Ctesiphon was now under Muslim control.
Yazdegerd III also sent his family, retainers and treasury ahead to Hulwan, where the emperor
intended to move his court if the great capital fell.
Although behaving as if defeat was already inevitable, from his seat in the White Palace
Yazdegerd appointed Rostam’s brother Khurrazad and Mihran to command the defence of the eastern
city.
These generals promptly redeployed their remaining forces on the eastern bank and waited for
the besiegers’ next move.
That same evening, on the river’s edge of newly occupied Veh-Ardashir, Sa’d stared
across the Tigris at the glorious Arch of Khosrow and pondered his next move, eager
to claim it for Islam.
As Muhammad’s former companion strategised to himself, a Persian approached him and asked
“What are you waiting for?”, followed by the alarming revelation that “Not another
two days will pass before Yazdegerd departs with everything in Ctesiphon!”
Time was now of the essence.
Another sympathetic local, possibly disillusioned by heavy Sassanid taxation or possibly even
a recent convert to Islam, took Sa’d to a known ford in the river, one which Sa’d
deemed unsuitable due to the swift current and deep water.
Rather than make a hasty decision right then, he chose to sleep on the issue and decide
in the morning.
During the night, Sa’d supposedly had a strange dream in which he saw the Tigris’
waters, only they were flowing incredibly quickly and were unrealistically deep.
Still, his own Arab cavalry appeared and plunged into the seemingly impassable torrent, reaching
the other side relatively easily.
The next morning, Sa’d convened a conference of his highest generals and declared that
the cavalry would swim through the river, and asked if there were any volunteers to
lead the dangerous attack.
The first to put himself forward was Asim bin Amr, Qaqa’s tribal comrade and a dashing
military leader, followed by 700 of the most reckless and brave Muslim warriors.
After all necessary preparations had been made by midmorning, Asim plunged into the
water and began his crossing.
Khurrazad responded by ordering his Persians into the river to meet them, but after a hearty
resistance the Sassanid cavalry who responded were pushed back when one of their comrades
from the city came, shouting “Why are you killing yourselves, there is nobody left in
Ctesiphon to defend!”
He was at least partially correct.
Upon receiving word that the Muslims were crossing the Tigris, Emperor Yazdegerd had
departed his capital for Hulwan, taking much of the imperial court with him.
After their resistance faltered, most of the army defending the city followed suit4, save
for a Sassanid regiment fortified in the White Palace.
On the Tigris, Sa’d took the opportunity Asim’s lance-like advance had given him
and began ferrying the rest of his warriors across to the bridgehead, not without danger
of succumbing to the raging waters.
One man fell from his horse and fell into the current, but the all-powerful Qaqa reached
down in the nick of time and heaved him up.
Despite the myriad dangers of the crossing, in relatively short order the entire Islamic
army was on the eastern bank of the Tigris river.
The moment Sa’d himself landed, he ordered Asim and Qaqa to move on the core of Ctesiphon,
in the process of which they encountered token resistance, but this was quickly dealt with.
The Muslims found their final opposition in the White Palace, but chose to deal with it
by sending forward yet another companion of Muhammad - Salman.
A Persian by birth, he had converted to Islam after meeting the prophet in Arabia, and now
his heritage proved a crucial boon.
“I am actually one of you, I feel for you.”
he said upon meeting the defenders, and outlined the usual three choices - Jizya, conversion,
or death.
After a short negotiation, the hopeless palace troops accepted the Islamic tax and surrendered.
Ctesiphon - Jewel of the Sassanid imperial superpower for over four centuries - was now
in Arab hands, a people who had been a mere afterthought only years earlier.
Separate columns of Arab riders under Zuhra and Qaqa galloped forth from the captured
city almost immediately, moving in different directions5 in pursuit of their enemy.
The spoils were plenty - for example, 11 priceless suits of armour and swords which belonged
to Heraclius of the Byzantine Empire, the Turkish Khagan, and other world leaders.
Other treasures now in Sa’d’s hands included gold, jewels, and imperial regalia.
With the Sassanid capital had come the empire’s boundless wealth, and also the first major
mass conversions of Persians to Islam.
Salman the Persian in particular played a role in this religious change, preaching to
his countrymen the values and beliefs of the new faith.
Although Ctesiphon and all the ‘Suwad’ was lost to the House of Sasan, the Persians’
resistance to their conquest by the Muslims would continue in the old heartland beyond
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