THE UNDEFEATED SOLDIER
Khalid ibn al-Walid ibn al-Mughira al-Makhzumi (Arabic: خالد بن الوليد بن المغيرة المخزومي, romanized: Khālid ibn al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra al-Makhzūmī; died 642) was an Arab Muslim commander in the service of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and the Rashidun caliphs Abu Bakr (r. 632–634) and Umar (r. 634–644). He played the leading military role in the Ridda wars against rebel tribes in Arabia in 632–633, the initial campaigns in Sasanian Iraq in 633–634 and the conquest of Byzantine Syria in 634–638.
Khalid ibn al-Walid
خالد بن الوليد
Native name
Arabic: خالد بن الوليد بن المغيرة المخزومي, romanized: Khālid ibn al-Walīd ibn al-Mughīra al-Makhzūmī
Other name(s)
Sayf Allah ('the Sword of God')
Abu Sulayman
Born
Mecca
Died
642
Medina or Homs, Rashidun Caliphate
Possible burial place
The Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque, Homs, Syria
Allegiance
Quraysh (625–627 or 629)
Muhammad (627 or 629–632)
Rashidun Caliphate (632–638)
Service/branch
Rashidun army
Years of service
629–638
Commands held
Field commander in Najd and the Yamama (632–633)
Supreme commander of Muslim armies in Syria (634–636)
Field commander in northern Syria (636–638)
Military governor of Qinnasrin (c. 638)
Battles/wars
Against Muslims:
Battle of Uhud (625)
Battle of the Trench (627)
For Muslims:
Battle of Mu'ta (629)
Conquest of Mecca (629 or 630)
Battle of Hunayn (630)
Ridda wars
Battle of Buzakha (632)
Battle of Aqraba (633)
Early campaigns in Iraq
Battle of Dhat al-Salasil (633)
Battle of Nahr al-Mar'a (633)
Battle of Ullays (633)
Battle of Walaja (633)
Capture of al-Hira (633)
Siege of Anbar (633)
Siege of Ayn al-Tamr (633)
Battle of Firaz (634)
Muslim conquest of Syria
Battle of Marj Rahit (634)
Siege of Bosra (634)
Battle of Ajnadayn (634)
Battle of Fahl (634 or 635)
Siege of Damascus (634–635)
Battle of Yarmouk (636)
Siege of Emesa (637–638)
Siege of Aleppo (637)
Battle of Qinnasrin (637–638)
Spouse(s)
Asma bint Anas ibn Mudrik
Umm Tamim bint al-Minhal
Children
Sulayman
Abd al-Rahman
Muhajir
A horseman of the Quraysh tribe's aristocratic clan, the Makhzum, which ardently opposed Muhammad, Khalid played the instrumental role in defeating the Muslims at the Battle of Uhud in 625. Following his conversion to Islam in 627 or 629, he was made a commander by Muhammad, who bestowed on him the title Sayf Allah ('the Sword of God'). Khalid coordinated the safe withdrawal of Muslim troops during the abortive expedition to Mu'ta against the Arab allies of the Byzantines in 629 and led the Bedouin contingents of the Muslim army during the capture of Mecca and the Battle of Hunayn in c. 630. After Muhammad's death, Khalid was appointed to suppress or subjugate Arab tribes in Najd and the Yamama (both regions in central Arabia) opposed to the nascent Muslim state, defeating the rebel leaders Tulayha at the Battle of Buzakha in 632 and Musaylima at the Battle of Aqraba in 633.
Khalid subsequently moved against the largely Christian Arab tribes and the Sasanian Persian garrisons of the Euphrates valley in Iraq. He was reassigned by Abu Bakr to command the Muslim armies in Syria and he led his men there on an unconventional march across a long, waterless stretch of the Syrian Desert, boosting his reputation as a military strategist. As a result of decisive victories against the Byzantines at Ajnadayn (634), Fahl (634 or 635), Damascus (634–635) and Yarmouk (636), the Muslims under Khalid conquered most of Syria. He was afterward demoted from the high command by Umar. Khalid continued service as the key lieutenant of his successor Abu Ubayda ibn al-Jarrah in the sieges of Homs and Aleppo and the Battle of Qinnasrin, all in 637–638, which collectively precipitated the retreat from Syria of imperial Byzantine troops under Emperor Heraclius. Umar dismissed Khalid from his governorship of Qinnasrin afterward and he died in Medina or Homs in 642.
Khalid is generally considered by historians to be one of early Islam's most seasoned and accomplished generals and he is commemorated throughout the Arab world. The Islamic tradition credits Khalid for his battlefield tactics and effective leadership of the early Muslim conquests, but accuses him of illicitly executing Arab tribesmen who had accepted Islam, namely members of the Banu Jadhima during the lifetime of Muhammad and Malik ibn Nuwayra during the Ridda wars, and moral and fiscal misconduct in Syria. His military fame disturbed some of the pious early Muslims, including Umar, who feared it could develop into a personality cult,
The Makhzum were strongly opposed to Muhammad, and the clan's preeminent leader Amr ibn Hisham (Abu Jahl), Khalid's first cousin, organized the boycott of Muhammad's clan, the Banu Hashim of Quraysh, in c. 616–618.[1] After Muhammad emigrated from Mecca to Medina in 622, the Makhzum under Abu Jahl commanded the war against him until they were routed at the Battle of Badr in 624.[1] About twenty-five of Khalid's paternal cousins, including Abu Jahl, and numerous other kinsmen were slain in that engagement.[1]
Black mountains in a desert with a white mosque with a minaret in the foreground
Mount Uhud (pictured in 2009) where the battle took place
The following year Khalid commanded the right flank of the cavalry in the Meccan army which confronted Muhammad at the Battle of Uhud north of Medina.[8] According to the historian Donald Routledge Hill, rather than launching a frontal assault against the Muslim lines on the slopes of Mount Uhud, "Khalid adopted the sound tactics" of going around the mountain and bypassing the Muslim flank.[9] He advanced through the Wadi Qanat valley west of Uhud until being checked by Muslim archers south of the valley at Mount Ruma.[9] The Muslims gained the early advantage in the fight, but after most of the Muslim archers abandoned their positions to join the raiding of the Meccans' camp, Khalid charged against the resulting break in the Muslims' rear defensive lines.[8][9] In the ensuing rout, several dozen Muslims were killed.[8] The narratives of the battle describe Khalid riding through the field, slaying the Muslims with his lance.[10] Shaban credits Khalid's "military genius" for the Quraysh's victory at Uhud, the only engagement in which the tribe defeated Muhammad.[11]
In 628 Muhammad and his followers headed for Mecca to perform the umra (lesser pilgrimage to Mecca) and the Quraysh dispatched 200 cavalry to intercept him upon hearing of his departure.[12] Khalid was at the head of the cavalry and Muhammad avoided confronting him by taking an unconventional and difficult alternate route, ultimately reaching Hudaybiyya at the edge of Mecca. Upon realizing Muhammad's change of course, Khalid withdrew to Mecca.[13] A truce between the Muslims and the Quraysh was reached in the Treaty of Hudaybiyya in March.[12]
Conversion to Islam and service under Muhammad
Edit
In the year 6 AH (c. 627) or 8 AH (c. 629) Khalid embraced Islam in Muhammad's presence alongside the Qurayshite Amr ibn al-As;[14] the modern historian Michael Lecker comments that the accounts holding that Khalid and Amr converted in 8 AH are "perhaps more trustworthy".[15] The historian Akram Diya Umari holds that Khalid and Amr embraced Islam and relocated to Medina following the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, apparently after the Quraysh dropped demands for the extradition of newer Muslim converts to Mecca.[16] Following his conversion, Khalid "began to devote all his considerable military talents to the support of the new Muslim state", according to the historian Hugh N. Kennedy.[17]
Khalid participatedin the expedition to Mu'ta in modern-day Jordan ordered by Muhammad in September 629.[18][19] The purpose of the raid may have been to acquire booty in the wake of the Sasanian Persian army's retreat from Syria following its defeat by the Byzantine Empire in July.[20] The Muslim detachment was routed by a Byzantine force consisting mostly of Arab tribesmen led by the Byzantine commander Theodore and several high-ranking Muslim commanders were slain.[20][21] Khalid took command of the army following the deaths of the appointed commanders and, with considerable difficulty, oversaw a safe withdrawal of the Muslims.[19][22] Muhammad rewarded Khalid by bestowing on him the honorary title Sayf Allah ('the Sword of God').[22]
Ruins of a desert oasis town with palm groves in the backround
The oasis town of Dumat al-Jandal (pictured in 2007). Khalid led an expedition against the city in 630, and may have led another expedition in 633 or 634, though modern historians have cast doubt about the latter campaign or Khalid's role in it.
In December 629 or January 630, Khalid took part in Muhammad's capture of Mecca, after which most of the Quraysh converted to Islam.[1] In that engagement Khalid led a nomadic contingent called muhajirat al-arab ('the Bedouin emigrants').[7] He led one of the two main pushes into the city and in the subsequent fighting with the Quraysh, three of his men were killed while twelve Qurayshites were slain, according to Ibn Ishaq, the 8th-century biographer of Muhammad.[23] Khalid commanded the Bedouin Banu Sulaym in the Muslims' vanguard at the Battle of Hunayn later that year. In that confrontation, the Muslims, boosted by the influx of Qurayshite converts, defeated the Thaqif—the Ta'if-based traditional rivals of the Quraysh—and their nomadic Hawazin allies.[7] Khalid was then appointed to destroy the idol of al-Uzza, one of the goddesses worshiped in pre-Islamic Arabian religion, in the Nakhla area between Mecca and Ta'if.[18]
Khalid was afterward dispatched to invite to Islam the Banu Jadhima in Yalamlam, about 80 kilometers (50 mi) south of Mecca, but the Islamic traditional sources hold that he attacked the tribe illicitly.[18] In the version of Ibn Ishaq, Khalid had persuaded the Jadhima tribesmen to disarm and embrace Islam, which he followed up by executing a number of the tribesmen in revenge for the Jadhima's slaying of his uncle Fakih ibn al-Mughira dating to before Khalid's conversion to Islam. In the narrative of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 1449), Khalid misunderstood the tribesmen's acceptance of the faith as a rejection or denigration of Islam due to his unfamiliarity with the Jadhima's accent and consequently attacked them. In both versions Muhammad declared himself innocent of Khalid's action but did not discharge or punish him.[24] According to the historian W. Montgomery Watt, the traditional account about the Jadhima incident "is hardly more than a circumstantial denigration of Khālid, and yields little solid historical fact".[25]
Later in 630, while Muhammad was at Tabuk, he dispatched Khalid to capture the oasis market town of Dumat al-Jandal.[18] Khalid gained its surrender and imposed a heavy penalty on the inhabitants of the town, one of whose chiefs, the Kindite Ukaydir ibn Abd al-Malik al-Sakuni, was ordered by Khalid to sign the capitulation treaty with Muhammad in Medina.[26] In June 631 Khalid was sent by Muhammad at the head of 480 men to invite the mixed Christian and polytheistic Balharith tribe of Najran to embrace Islam.[27] The tribe converted and Khalid instructed them in the Qur'an and Islamic laws before returning to Muhammad in Medina with a Balharith delegation.[27]
All early Islamic accounts agree that Khalid was ordered by Abu Bakr to leave Iraq for Syria to support Muslim forces already present there. Most of these accounts hold that the caliph's order was prompted by requests for reinforcements by the Muslim commanders in Syria.[89] Khalid likely began his march to Syria in early April 634.[90] He left small Muslim garrisons in the conquered cities of Iraq under the overall military command of al-Muthanna ibn Haritha.[91]
The chronological sequence of events after Khalid's operations in Ayn al-Tamr is inconsistent and confused.[92] According to Donner, Khalid undertook two further principal operations before embarking on his march to Syria, which have often been conflated by the sources with events that occurred during the march. One of the operations was against Dumat al-Jandal and the other against the Namir and Taghlib tribes present along the western banks of the upper Euphrates valley as far as the Balikh tributary and the Jabal al-Bishri mountains northeast of Palmyra.[92] It is unclear which engagement occurred first, though both were Muslim efforts to bring the mostly nomadic Arab tribes of north Arabia and the Syrian steppe under Medina's control.[92]
In the Dumat al-Jandal campaign, Khalid was instructed by Abu Bakr or requested by one of the commanders of the campaign, al-Walid ibn Uqba, to reinforce the lead commander Iyad ibn Ghanm's faltering siege of the oasis town. Its defenders were backed by their nomadic allies from the Byzantine-confederate tribes, the Ghassanids, Tanukhids, Salihids, Bahra and Banu Kalb.[93] Khalid left Ayn al-Tamr for Dumat al-Jandal where the combined Muslim forces bested the defenders in a pitched battle.[93] Afterward, Khalid executed the town's Kindite leader Ukaydir, who had defected from Medina following Muhammad's death, while the Kalbite chief Wadi'a was spared after the intercession of his Tamimite allies in the Muslims' camp.[94]
The historians Michael Jan de Goeje and Caetani dismiss altogether that Khalid led an expedition to Dumat al-Jandal following his Iraqi campaign and that the city mentioned in the traditional sources was likely the town by the same name near al-Hira.[26] The historian Laura Veccia Vaglieri calls their assessment "logical" and writes that "it seems impossible that Khālid could have made such a detour which would have taken him so far out of his way while delaying the accomplishment of his mission [to join the Muslim armies in Syria]".[26] Vaglieri surmises that the oasis was conquered by Iyad ibn Ghanm or possibly Amr ibn al-As as the latter had been previously tasked during the Ridda wars with suppressing Wadi'a, who had barricaded himself in Dumat al-Jandal.[26] Crone, dismissing Khalid's role in Iraq entirely, asserts that Khalid had definitively captured Dumat al-Jandal in the 631 campaign and from there crossed the desert to engage in the Syrian conquest.[18]The starting point of Khalid's general march to Syria was al-Hira, according to most of the traditional accounts, with the exception of al-Baladhuri, who places it at Ayn al-Tamr.[95] The segment of the general march called the 'desert march' by the sources occurred at an unclear stage after the al-Hira departure.[96] This phase entailed Khalid and his men—numbering between 500 to 800 strong[97]—marching from a well called Quraqir across a vast stretch of waterless desert for six days and five nights until reaching a source of water at a place called Suwa.[98] As his men did not possess sufficient waterskins to traverse this distance with their horses and camels, Khalid had some twenty of his camels increase their typical water intake and sealed their mouths to prevent the camels from eating and consequently spoiling the water in their stomachs; each day of the march, he had a number of the camels slaughtered so his men could drink the water stored in the camels' stomachs.[97][99] The utilization of the camels as water storage and the locating of the water source at Suwa were the result of advice given to Khalid by his guide, Rafi ibn Amr of the Tayy.[97][100]
Excluding the above-mentioned operations in Dumat al-Jandal and the upper Euphrates valley, the traditional accounts agree on only two events of Khalid's route to Syria after the departure from al-Hira: the desert march between Quraqir and Suwa, and a subsequent raid against the Bahra tribe at or near Suwa and operations which resulted in the submission of Palmyra; otherwise, they diverge in tracing Khalid's itinerary.[101] Based on these accounts, Donner summarizes three possible routes taken by Khalid to the vicinity of Damascus: two via Palmyra from the north and the one via Dumat al-Jandal from the south.[96] Kennedy notes the sources are "equally certain" in their advocacy of their respective itineraries and there is "simply no knowing which version is correct".[97]
In the first Palmyra–Damascus itinerary, Khalid marches upwards along the Euphrates—passing through places he had previously reduced—to Jabal al-Bishri and from there successively moves southwestwards through Palmyra, al-Qaryatayn and Huwwarin before reaching the Damascus area.[100] In this route the only span where a desert march could have occurred is between Jabal al-Bishri and Palmyra, though the area between the two places is considerably less than a six-day march and contains a number of water sources.[100] The second Palmyra-Damascus itinerary is a relatively direct route between al-Hira to Palmyra via Ayn al-Tamr.[100] The stretch of desert between Ayn al-Tamr and Palmyra is long enough to corroborate a six-day march and contains scarce watering points, though there are no placenames that can be interpreted as Quraqir or Suwa.[102] In the Dumat al-Jandal–Damascus route, such placenames exist, namely the sites of Qulban Qurajir, associated with 'Quraqir', along the eastern edge of Wadi Sirhan, and Sab Biyar, which is identified with Suwa 150 kilometers (93 mi) east of Damascus.[102] The span between the two sites is arid and corresponds with the six-day march narrative.[102]
The desert march is the most celebrated episode of Khalid's expedition and medieval Futuh ('Islamic conquests') literature in general.[98] Kennedy writes that the desert march "has been enshrined in history and legend. Arab sources marvelled at his [Khalid's] endurance; modern scholars have seen him as a master of strategy."[97] He asserts it is "certain" Khalid embarked on the march, "a memorable feat of military endurance", and "his arrival in Syria was an important ingredient of the success of Muslim arms there".[97] The historian Moshe Gil calls the march "a feat which has no parallel" and a testament to "Khalid's qualities as an outstanding commander".[103]
The historian Ryan J. Lynch deems Khalid's desert march to be a literary construct by the authors of the Islamic tradition to form a narrative linking the Muslim conquests ofIraq and Syria and presenting the conquests as "a well-calculated, singular affair" in line with the authors' alleged polemical motives.[104] Lynch holds that the story of the march, which "would have excited and entertained" Muslim audiences, was created out of "fragments of social memory" by inhabitants who attributed the conquests of their towns or areas to Khalid as a means "to earn a certain degree of prestige through association" with the "famous general".[104]
He was undefeated in hundred battles.
He was undefeated in hundred battles.
He was undefeated in hundred battles.
ALLAH-O-AKBAR