CHAPTER XVI.
YEZDEGIRD SUCCEEDS TO THE THRONE OF PERSIA.—BATTLE OF CADESIYA.
A.H. XIV. A.D. 635.
Profuseness of tradition regarding field of Câdesîya.
The desperate field of Câdesîya has been described to us with almost as profuse detail as the leading battles of the the Prophet. The length and severity of the contest, its memorable results, and the proximity of the ground to Kûfa, made it a favourite topic of discourse at that grand centre of tradition. Hence the prolixity. We shall follow the outline only of the story, avoiding the detail with which it has been overlaid.
Yezdegird made king of Persia. A.H. XIII. December, A.D. 634.
We left Mothanna, after the battle of Boweib, ravaging at pleasure the terror-stricken coasts of Chaldæa. In the alternations of war, another wave from the opposite quarter was about to sweep over that unhappy land. A new movement was taking place at Medâin. The Persian nobles, scandalised at the weakness of Rustem and the feeble Queen, began to cry out that he was dragging the empire down to ruin. The ladies of the court were assembled to inquire whether any king might not yet be discovered of the royal blood. At last there was found Yezdegird, saved as a child from the massacre of Siroes, and now a youth of twenty-one.[248] He was placed upon the throne. Around the young King the nobles rallied loyally, and something of the old fire of the empire was rekindled. Troops were gathered, Mesopotamia was reoccupied, and the cities as far as Hîra and the desert strongly garrisoned.
Mothanna forced to fall back. Dzul Cáda, A.H. XIII. January, A.D. 635.
The inhabitants returned to their ancient allegiance; and Mothanna, finding the whole Sawâd in arms, and his diminished army unable to cope with the rising, again withdrew, and concentrated his troops behind the Euphrates. He sent an urgent message, telling of the new perils threatening him, to Omar. The danger was met bravely by the Caliph. ‘I swear by the Lord,’ he cried, when the tidings reached him, ‘that I will smite down the princes of Persia with the sword of the princes of Arabia.’ It was clearly impossible to hold any part of Mesopotamia or the delta of the Euphrates, so long as they were dominated close at hand by the court of Persia on the banks of the Tigris. The capital must be taken at any cost, and an army large enough gathered for the purpose. Omar orders another levy en masse.Orders, more stringent even than those before, went forth (as we have already seen) for a new and universal levy. ‘Hasten to me,’ he wrote in all directions, ‘hasten speedily!’ And forthwith Arabia resounded again with the call to arms. The troops from the south were to gather before the Caliph at Medîna; those nearer to Syria, the demand being urgent and time precious, were to march straight to Mothanna. Dzul Hijj. A.H. XIII. February, A.D. 635.This much arranged, Omar set out on the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. On his return, he repaired to the rendezvous at Jorf, where the contingents as they came in were marshalled. In a council of war, it was debated whether the Caliph, as he proposed, and as the people wished, should in person lead the army to Irâc. The chief ‘Companions’ were against it.[249] Defeat, if Omar were on the field of battle, might be fatal; but seated at Medîna, even under the worst disaster he could launch column after column on the enemy. Omar yielded; and, whatever may have been his real intention the show of readiness to bear the heat and burden of the day imparted a new impulse of enthusiasm to the army.
Sád appointed commander in Irâc.
Who now should be the leader of this great army in Irâc? Mothanna and Jarîr, already there, were but Bedouin chieftains. None but a peer could take command of the Companions and Nobles of the land now flocking to the field. The matter was being discussed in an assembly, when at the moment there came a despatch from Sád son of Abu Wackkâs, the Caliph’s lieutenant with the Beni Hawâzin, reporting the levy of a thousand good lances from that tribe. ‘Here is the man!’ cried those around. ‘Who?’ asked the Caliph. ‘None but the Ravening Lion,’[250] was the answer; ‘Sád, the son of Mâlik.’ The choice was sealed by acclamation; and so, Omar immediately summoned Sád. Converted at Mecca while yet a boy, the new Ameer of Irâc was now forty years of age. He is known as ‘the first who drew blood in Islam,’ and was a noted archer in the Prophet’s wars. He took rank also as the nephew of Mahomet’s mother. Short and dark, with large head and shaggy hair, Sád was brave, but not well-favoured. The Caliph gave him such advice as the momentous issues of the campaign demanded, and warned him not to trust to his extraction. ‘The Lord,’ he said, ‘looketh to merit and good works, not to birth; for in His sight all men are equal.’[251] Thus admonished, Sád set out for Irâc, with 4,000 men, the first-fruits of the new levy. As a rule, they marched now with their women and children.
As the levies kept coming in, Omar sent them on, one after another, to join Sád. Sád marches to Irâc and encamps on the border of the desert.The numbers swelling rapidly embraced the chivalry of Arabia. Toleiha, the quondam prophet, now an exemplary believer, and Amr ibn Mádekerib, went in command of their respective tribes, the Beni Asad and Zobeid; and Omar wrote that each chief was himself worth a thousand men. Al Asháth, also, head of the Beni Kinda, the apostate rebel of the south, now joined the army with a column of his tribe from Yemen.[252] Indeed, Omar, we are told, ‘left not a single person of any note or dignity in the land, whether warrior, poet, orator, or chieftain, nor any man possessed of horse or weapons, but he sent him off to Irâc.’ Thus reinforced, Sád found himself at the head of 20,000 men; and when the column ordered back from Syria returned, the numbers were over 30,000—by far the largest force yet mustered by the Arabs on the plains of Chaldæa.[253] The troops now marching on Irâc, and those that had been commanded by Mothanna, drew all together at Sherâf, on the borders of the desert, fifteen or twenty miles to the south of Hîra.