|
The pact was drawn up accordingly.
It was signed on behalf of the Muslims by Khalid and on behalf of the
Bani Hanifa by Muja'a bin Marara. 1
When the pact had been signed, Muja'a returned
to the fort, and soon after the gates of the fort were thrown open.
Khalid, accompanied by his mounted warriors and Muja'a, rode into
the city, expecting to see hordes of armed warriors, but wherever
he looked, he saw nothing but women and old men and children. He
turned in amazement to Muja'a. "Where are the warriors I
saw?"
Muja'a pointed at the women. "Those
are the warriors you saw", he explained. "When
I came into the fort I dressed these women in armour, gave them
weapons, and made them parade on the battlements. There are no warriors!"
Furious at being tricked, Khalid swore at
Muja'a, "You deceived me, O Muja'a!"
Muja'a merely shrugged his shoulders. "They
are my people. I could do nothing else."
But for the pact, Khalid would have torn
Muja'a apart with his bare hands. However, the pact had been signed
and its terms had to be respected. The Bani Hanifa, those of them
who were in the city, were safe. Soon they had come out of their
city roamed freely in the neighbourhood.
A day or two later a message arrived from
the Caliph, who was not yet aware of the end of the Battle of Yamamah,
instructing Khalid to kill all the apostates of the Bani Hanifa.
Khalid wrote back explaining that the Caliph's order could not be
implemented because of the pact that he had signed. Abu Bakr agreed
to the observance of the terms of the pact.
But the pact only applied to those who had
been in the fort. The rest of the vast tribe of Bani Hanifa-tens
of thousands of people living in the region around Yamamah-were
not covered by the pact. The most important element of the Bani
Hanifa now was the remnants of the army of Musailima which had fled
from the plain of Aqraba. These warriors, amounting to more than
20,000 men, were moving at random in clans and groups. After Musailima's
death they posed no great danger to Islam, but they could nevertheless
cause considerable mischief. They had to be crushed. Under the harsh
laws of war, they had no claim to immunity from attack until they
had fully submitted.
Khalid was determined to wipe out all resistance
among the Bani Hanifa so that undisturbed peace might prevail in
the region. He allowed his army a couple of day's rest: then he
divided it into several columns which he despatched to subdue the
region around Yamamah and to kill or capture all who resisted. These
columns fanned out in the countryside.
The fugitives were sought out wherever they
had taken shelter. Thousands remained unrepentant and defiant, these
were attacked and wiped out, and their women and children taken
captive. But other thousands submitted and were spared. Eventually
all the survivors re-entered Islam.
Khalid set up his headquarters near Yamamah,
where he was to stay about two months before receiving his next
military task from the Caliph.
With the successful conclusion of the Battle
of Yamamah, most of Arabia was freed of the mischief of the apostasy.
Some of it still remained on the fringes of the peninsula, but this
posed no serious threat. Some battles were still to be fought, but
they were minor affairs compared with the great clashes which have
been described in this and the preceding chapters.
1. There is some difference of opinion among
early historians about the exact terms of the pact, but the details
are not important.
| 
