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If Khalid had hoped that
he would not be recognised in Makkah, he was mistaken. He had hardly
got back from the raid on Baghdad when he received a letter from
Abu Bakr warning him "not to do it again!" The warning
was accompanied by another great mission: Khalid was to proceed
to Syria. The Campaign in Iraq was over. 1
The invasion of Iraq was a splendid success.
The Muslims had fought several bloody battles with Persian armies
much larger in size, and they not only won every battle but also
inflicted crushing defeats on the Persians and their Arab auxiliaries.
And the Persian Army was the most fearsome military machine of the
time!
Khalid's strategy in this campaign, and
it was one from which he never deviated, was to fight his battles
close to the desert, with his routes to the desert open in case
he should suffer a reverse. The desert was not only a haven of security
into which the Persians would not venture but also a region of free,
fast movement in which he could move easily and rapidly to any objective
that he chose. He did not enter deep into Iraq until the Persian
Army had lost its ability to threaten his routes to the desert.
The Persian military strategy was conditioned
by the political necessity of defending the imperial borders, and
this led to their fighting their battles with the Muslims on the
boundary between the desert and the sown, as Khalid wished. But
within this political limitation, they followed a sound course and
planned a massive concentration of strength for battle. Qarin should
have joined Hormuz; Bahman should have joined Andarzaghar; and Ruzbeh
and Zarmahr should have joined the Arab forces at Muzayyah and Saniyy-Zurmail.
Had these combinations taken place, the campaign may have taken
an altogether different course. But they did not take place, thanks
to Khalid's fast movement and his deliberate design to bring the
various armies to battle one by one, separating them from each other
in time and space.
The main instruments that Khalid used to
make his ambitious manoeuvres successful were the fighting quality
of the Muslims and the mobility of the army. These he exploited
to the limits of human and animal endurance. Though only part of
his army was actual cavalry, the entire army was camel mounted for
movement and could strike at the decisive place and the decisive
time as its commander wished. It could move fast enough to fight
a battle at A, and then be present at B for another battle before
the enemy could react.
There is no record of the strength of the
Persian forces which faced Khalid in the various battles, or of
the casualties suffered by either side. Certain casualty figures
given for the Persians are probably exaggerated. What is certain
is that they were very large armies and suffered staggering losses,
especially at Walaja, Ullais, Muzayyah and Saniyy-Zumail, where
they ceased to exist as effective fighting forces. The Persian armies
that faced Khalid at Kazima, MaqiI, Walaja and Ullais probably numbered
between 30,000 and 50,000 men. An enemy force up to two or three
times their strength would not worry Khalid and his stalwarts. They
would take it in their stride. Nor would armies of this size be
too large by Persian standards. (At the Battle of Qadissiyah, fought
three years later, the Persians fielded an army of 60,000 men!)
As for Muslim casualties, considering that the army remained at
a high level of effectiveness throughout the campaign, they must
have been light.
Above all, it was the personality of Khalid
that made the invasion of Iraq possible and successful against such
staggering odds. He was the first of the illustrious Muslim commanders
who set out to conquer foreign lands and redraw the political and
religious map of the world. He imposed no hardship upon his men
which he did not bear himself. It was the limitless faith which
his warriors had in the Sword of Allah that made it possible for
them to brave such dangers.
Khalid swept across Iraq like a violent
storm. Like a violent storm he would now dash to Syria and strike
the armies of another proud empire-Eastern Rome.
1. For an explanation of the dates of the
battles in this campaign see Note 7 in Appendix B.
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