An Account of the Muslim Conquest of Syria
Niall Christie
Al-Baladhuri, from Kitab Futuh al-Buldan (Book of the Conquests of Lands)
In the face of the Muslim expansion, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius gathered a large army which met the Muslim army at the Battle of the Yarmuk in Syria on 20 August 636. It was a crushing victory which gave Syria to the Muslims. The account of al-Baladhuri (d. c. 892) shows the episodic and personal character of early Islamic historiography but also emphasizes the hostility of Syria to Byzantium and the welcome which the inhabitants of the former province accorded to their invaders. The translation has been edited for clarity.
Al-Baladhuri on the Muslim Conquest of Syria
A description of the battle: Heraclius gathered large bodies of Greeks, Syrians, Mesopotamians and Armenians numbering about 200,000. This army he put under the command of one of his choice men and sent as a vanguard Jabala ibn al-Ayham al-Ghassani at the head of the “naturalized” Arabs[1] of Syria of the tribes of Lakhm, Judham and others, resolving to fight the Muslims so that he might either win or withdraw to the land of the Greeks and live in Constantinople. The Muslims gathered together and the Greek army marched against them. The battle they fought at al-Yarmuk[2] was of the fiercest and bloodiest kind. Al-Yarmuk is a river. In this battle 24,000 Muslims took part. The Greeks and their followers in this battle tied themselves to each other by chains, so that no one might set his hope on flight. By Allah’s help, some 70,000 of them were put to death, and their remnants took to flight, reaching as far as Palestine, Antioch, Aleppo, Mesopotamia and Armenia. In the battle of al-Yarmuk certain Muslim women took part and fought violently. Among them was Hind, daughter of ‘Utbah and mother of Mu‘awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, who repeatedly exclaimed, “Cut the arms of these ‘uncircumcised’ with your swords!” Her husband Abu Sufyan had come to Syria as a volunteer desiring to see his sons, and so he brought his wife with him. He then returned to al-Madina[3] where he died, year 31,[4] at the age of 88. Others say he died in Syria. When the news of his death was carried to his daughter, Umm Habiba, she waited until the third day on which she ordered some yellow paint and covered with it her arms and face saying, “I would not have done that, had I not heard the Prophet say, ‘A woman should not be in mourning for more than three days over anyone except her husband.’” It is stated that she did likewise when she received the news of her brother Yazid’s death. But Allah knows best.
Those who lost an eye or suffered martyrdom: Abu Sufyan ibn Harb was one-eyed. He had lost his eye in the battle of al-Ta‘if.[5] In the battle of al-Yarmuk, however, al-Ash‘ath ibn Qays, Hashim ibn ‘Utbah ibn Abi Waqqas al-Zuhri (i.e., al-Mirqal) and Qays ibn Makshuh, each lost an eye. In this battle ‘Amir ibn Abi Waqqas al-Zuhri fell a martyr. It is this ‘Amir who once carried the lett