The Conquest of Ra's al-Ayn

فتح رأس العين

c. 640 CE · c. 20 AH

In al-Baladhuri through al-Hajjaj ibn Abi Mani' from his grandfather: Ra's al-Ayn — that is Ayn al-Warda — resisted Iyad ibn Ghanm and Umayr ibn Sa'd took it while Umar's governor over the Jazira, after its people fought the Muslims bitterly; the Muslims entered it by force then compounded with them, the land assigned them and jizya laid on their heads at four dinars each without captives of women or children; in al-Waqidi's report Umar wrote to Iyad ordering him to send Umayr against Ayn al-Warda — the advance guard took peasants and enemy herds, the citizens shut the gates and set up mangonels, Muslims were killed by stones and arrows, and a patrician mocked them 'we are not like those you have met' — then it fell afterwards by treaty; elders of the city recount that when Umayr entered he called 'no harm, no harm — to me, to me', and that was their aman; Haytham ibn Adi claimed Umar sent Abu Musa al-Ash'ari who took it with the Jazira's army after Iyad's death, but the sound report is Umayr took it by force without enslavement, laying kharaj and jizya — none but Haytham says otherwise; a body of Ra's al-Ayn's people departed and the Muslims worked their fields, sowing them by land-grants.

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The Conquest of Hit and the Euphrates Forts

In al-Baladhuri through Abu Ayyub the Raqqa tutor from Ali ibn Abdullah al-Qarqisani from his shaykhs: Umayr ibn Sa'd, after taking Ra's al-Ayn, worked the Khabur and its reaches until he came to Qarqisiya — whose people had broken faith — re-compounding with them on their first treaty, then took the Euphrates forts one by one on Qarqisiya's terms with little fighting, some throwing stones; finishing with Talbus and Anat he reached al-Na'usa, al-Lusa and Hit, where he found that Ammar ibn Yasir — then Umar's governor of Kufa — had sent an army raiding above al-Anbar under Sa'd ibn Amr ibn Haram al-Ansari, and the people of these forts had come to him seeking aman, which he granted, reserving half of Hit's church — whereupon Umayr returned to al-Raqqa; some scholars say the one who went against Hit and the forts beyond from Kufa was Midlaj ibn Amr al-Sulami, a confederate of Banu Abd Shams and a man of companionship, who took it and built al-Haditha on the Euphrates, his descendants at Hit including a man known as Abu Harun still remembered there — or, it is said, Midlaj acted under Sa'd ibn Amr ibn Haram; God knows best.

The Conquest of Ra's al-Ayn

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The Conquest of Hit and the Euphrates Forts