Wadi al-Rukkad

The Wadi al-Rukkad is a ravine in the region of the Yarmuk, known in history as the place where the Byzantine army in Syria was cut off in the battle of the Yarmuk in 15/636. The Encyclopaedia of Islam has no separate article on it, and this record rests on the battle section of its article on the Yarmuk. The museum's record of the Yarmuk and of the battle describe the wider setting. ¹

The article places the Byzantine camp in territory lying between the Wadi al-Rukkad and the Wadi al-Allan, both west of the Wadi al-Harir. The Byzantines thought the camp secure because the high bluffs of the wadis protected it. ¹ A second passage places the village of Yaqusa, at the edge of the Jawlan, among the camps stormed between the wadis. ¹

In a night raid the Muslims under Khalid ibn al-Walid seized the critical bridge over the Wadi al-Rukkad, which was the only viable retreat route for the encircled men and animals of the Byzantine army. ¹ The Byzantines, finding themselves blocked, could neither retreat in formation, nor fight their way out, nor negotiate a settlement; they panicked, the Muslims stormed their camps, and most of them were killed. A few may have escaped down the steep walls of the wadis. ¹

The article gives no coordinates for the wadi and does not describe the bridge itself. The identification of the wadi with a present-day watercourse is not made in the passage used, so no modern name or coordinates are given here. As the author of the article warns, no documentary records or eyewitness accounts survive, and the account kept by Ibn Asakir is regarded as probably the best. ¹