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The young man arrived in
the presence of the Caliph, armed and equipped for travel. The Caliph
ordered him to proceed forthwith to Yamamah as a reinforcement to
the army of Khalid. The Companions stared in amazement at the Caliph.
"Are you reinforcing one whose army has left him, with one
man?" they asked. 1
Abu Bakr looked for a moment at Qaqa. Then
he said, "No army can be defeated if its ranks possess the
likes of this man." 2 And Qaqa
bin Amr rode away to reinforce the army of Khalid!
But this was not the only action that Abu
Bakr took to build up Khalid's forces. He also wrote to Muthanna
and Mazhur bin Adi (an important chief in North-Eastern Arabia),
instructing them to muster their warriors and consider themselves
and their men under the command of Khalid for the invasion of Iraq.
Having issued these instructions, Abu Bakr
sat back and relaxed. He had given Khalid his mission to invade
Iraq and fight the Persians; he had laid down a starting-point for
the campaign, the region of Uballa; he had given Khalid his objective
- Hira; and he had placed under Khalid's command whatever force
he could muster. There was nothing else that he could do. It was
up to Khalid to accomplish his mission. And Khalid, now in the forty-eighth
year of his life, set about the conquest of Iraq. 3
1. Tabari: Vol. 2, pp. 553-4.
2. Ibid.
3. There are two main versions of campaign
of Iraq: the first of Ibn Ishaq and Waqidi, the second of Saif bin
Umar. Tabari favours the latter version, and this is the one here
used in the account of Khalid's invasion of Iraq. In this also there
are two versions of Abu Bakr's plan for the invasion. For an explanation,
see Note 4 in Appendix B.
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