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"...We crushed the two
horns of Qarin at Thaniyy, with violence unleashed."
[ Al-Qa'qa' bin Amr, commander in Khalid's army]1
When the Persian Emperor
received the message of Hormuz regarding the Muslim advance from
Yamamah, he organised a fresh army at Ctesiphon and placed it under
the command of a top-ranking general by the name of Qarin bin Qaryana.
Qarin too was a 100,000 dirham-man. The Emperor ordered him to proceed
to Uballa with the new army to reinforce Hormuz, and with this mission
Qarin set off from Ctesiphon.
Marching along the left bank of the Tigris,
Qarin reached Mazar, crossed the Tigris and moved south along the
right bank until he reached the Maqil River. He crossed this river
and then another largish river a little south of the Maqil. He had
hardly done so when he received reports of the disaster of Kazima.
These reports were followed by the remnants of the Persian army
which had survived the Battle of Kazima and now came streaming into
Qarin's camp under the two generals, Qubaz and Anushjan. The survivors
included thousands of Arab auxiliaries; and as is usual in such
cases, the two partners-Persian and Arab-began to blame each other
for the defeat. Their spirits were not as high as at Kazima; but
they were brave, men and reacted more with anger than fear at the
reverse they had suffered.
Qubaz and Anushjan were eager for battle
again. They and Qarin found it difficult to believe that a regular
imperial army could be defeated in battle by a force of uncultured
and unsophisticated Arabs from the desert. They did not realise
that the Battle of Kazima had been fought with not an uncivilised
Arab force but a fine Muslim army, purified and strengthened by
the new faith. However, Qarin was prudent enough not to advance
beyond the south bank. Here he could fight with his back to the
river and thus ensure the safety of his rear. By limiting the possibilities
of manoeuvre, he would fight the frontal set-piece battle which
the Persians loved and for which their training and discipline were
ideally suited.
The remnants of the Persian army of Uballa
were followed by the light cavalry detachments of Muthanna; and
once contact was established with the Persians, the Muslim horsemen
scoured the countryside for supplies while Muthanna kept the Persians
occupied and carried out reconnaissances. The Persians made no attempt
to sally out of their camp. Muthanna sent a messenger to Khalid
to inform him that he had made contact with a powerful enemy force
at Sinyy.2
The word sinyy was used by the Arabs
to denote a river. Muthanna had contacted the Persians on the south
bank of a river, and for this reason the battle which will now be
described is called the Battle of the River.
On leaving Kazima, Khalid marched north
until he reached some ruins in the vicinity of the present Zubair,
about 10 miles south-west of Uballa. He had already decided not
to turn towards Uballa, where there was no enemy left to fight,
when Muthanna's messenger brought the news about the concentration
of Qarin's army and the survivors of Kazima. Khalid was anxious
to contact and destroy the new Persian army while the impact of
Kazima was still fresh in the Persian mind. Consequently, while
he sent Maqal bin Muqarrin with a detachment to enter Uballa and
gather spoils (which Maqal did), Khalid marched towards the River
with the main body of the army. He caught up with Muthanna in the
third week of April 633 (beginning of Safar, 12 Hijri).
Khalid then carried out a personal reconnaissance of the Persian
position. Since the Persians had their backs to the river there
was no possibility of outflanking them; and Khalid could think of
no way of manoeuvring the Persians away from their position as he
had done with Hormuz. Khalid accordingly decided to fight a general
set-piece battle, in the imperial Persian style. This was unavoidable,
because with Qarin poised for action as he was, Khalid could neither
cross the river to enter deep into Iraq nor proceed west-wards towards
Hira.
1. Ibn Kathir, Al-Bidayah wan-Nihayah, Dar
Abi Hayyan, Cairo, 1st ed. 1416/1996, Vol. 6 P. 425.
2. It is difficult to express this word in
English. In Arabic it is written as (Yaqut: Vol. 1, p. 937) or as
Tabari puts it (Vol. 2, p. 557 )
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