Battle of al-Qādisīya
| date | 638 (636? 637?) |
|---|---|
| place | Kadesia near today's Hilla , Iraq |
| output | Victory of the Muslim Arabs |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| approx. 30,000 | approx. 40,000 |
| losses | |
|
7,500 |
unknown |
Al-Hira - Jarmuk - Kadesia - Heliopolis - Nehawend - Constantinople I - Constantinople II - Talas
The battle of al-Qādisīya or Kadesia ( Arabic معركة القادسيّة, DMG Maʿrakat al-Qādisīya ) was one of the milestones in the military expansion of Islam , along with the battle of Yarmuk (in which the Arabs decisively defeated Ostrom in 636) . The victory of the Muslims over the Persians made possible the occupation of Mesopotamia by the Arabs and was a prerequisite for their victory in the Battle of Nehawend , which finally sealed the fate of the Persian Sasanid Empire a few years later.
The exact dating of the battle is disputed; traditionally it was often called 636 and sometimes 637. The information from the chronologically closest source, the Armenian Chronicle of Sebeos (137), suggests January 6, 638 as the date.
the initial situation
The Sassanian Persians, whose empire had been weakened by a long war with the Byzantine Emperor Herakleios , tried to counter the Arab threat on their southwest flank with a forceful blow. In 634 a first attack had been successfully repelled in the battle of the bridge near Kufa, but the Arabs continued to attack. Therefore led Rostam Farrochzād , the imperial general of the great king Yazdegerd III. , now a large army across the Euphrates to Kadesia near today's Hilla in Iraq . The caliph Omar ibn al-Chattab sent him a cavalry army of around 30,000 Arabs under the command of Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqqas.
Course of the battle
The Arabs began rapid cavalry attacks, after which the Persians counterattacked with war elephants. Nevertheless, the Arabs were able to hold out. The fighting was fierce and lasted for three days until Sa'ad received assistance from fighters experienced in fighting war elephants with spears and bows. In this way the Arabs managed to break through the enemy ranks and to gain an advantage over the Persians until late at night. The next morning a desert storm is said to have blown against the Persians, which is said to have favored their ultimate defeat (something similar is reported about the Battle of Yarmuk, in which the Eastern Romans were defeated. It is therefore possible that this is a legend or is a topos ). In the Sasanid camp, the Arabs captured the jeweled Holy Banner ( Derafsch Kaviani ) of the Persians. Rostam Farrochzād sought his salvation in flight, but was captured and beheaded by the Arabs. The winners did not take any other prisoners either, but lost at least 7,500 men themselves.
The aftermath of the battle
Sa'ad pursued the fleeing Persians, whereupon Yazdegerd III. allegedly offered the entire area west of the Tigris to the Arabs , which they refused in view of a possible complete victory. As a result, the great king had to give up his residence in Ctesiphon and withdraw to the east to reorganize the resistance while the Arabs conquered Mesopotamia.
A few years later, in 642, the Arabs finally succeeded in effectively breaking up the Sasanid Empire in the battle of Nehawend . Yazdegerd III. was murdered in eastern Iran nine years later. With the fall of the last pre-Islamic empire in the Middle Ages, the end of antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages are generally assumed for this region .
Others
The battle of Kadesia was used by the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein as a model for the invasion of Khuzestan in 1980, which stood at the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war (1980–1988).
literature
- The History of Al- Tabarī . = Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa'l-mulūk. Volume 12: The battle of al-Qādisiyyah and the conquest of Syria and Palestine. (AD 635-637; AH 14-15). Translated by Yohanan Friedmann. State University of New York Press, Albany NY 1992, ISBN 0-7914-0733-0 .
- Abd al-Husain Zarrinkub: The Arab Conquest of Iran and Its Aftermath. In: AJ Arberry (Ed.): The Cambridge History of Iran . Volume 4: RN Frye (Ed.): The period from the Arab invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge u. a. 1975, ISBN 0-521-20093-8 , pp. 1-56.