Overview

In Rabi' I 332 the Byzantines entered Ra's al-'Ayn, enslaved three thousand of its people and plundered the country — the Domesticos had come against it with eighty thousand ¹.

The Conquest of Ra's al-Ayn

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.

The Byzantine entry into Ra's al-'Ayn

At a glance

In time

Sides

Overview

Connections

People and things also explored

Sources

Time

The Conquest of Ra's al-Ayn