Sirah Atlas
Battles of Early Islam
From the first confrontation at Badr under the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ to the campaigns of the Rightly Guided Caliphs: every battle told phase by phase, based on the classical sources, with an interactive map.
Seerah of the Prophet ﷺ
11- 624 CE / 2 AH
The Battle of Badr
The first major battle in Islamic history. On 17 Ramadan 2 AH (13 March 624), 313 Muslims under the leadership of the Prophet ﷺ defeated a Quraysh army of around 1,000 men at the w…
Open the interactive battle map - 624 CE / 2 AH
The Siege of Banu Qaynuqaʿ
Weeks after Badr, the first of the three Jewish tribes of Madinah broke with the covenant of the city. The immediate cause was an assault on a Muslim woman in their market and the …
- 625 CE / 3 AH
The Battle of Uhud
The trying battle at the foot of Mount Uhud. On 7 Shawwal 3 AH (23 March 625), 700 Muslims under the leadership of the Prophet ﷺ fought a Quraysh army of 3,000 men, in a battle tha…
Open the interactive battle map - 625 CE / 4 AH
The Siege of Banu Nadir
The second break came when Banu Nadir, asked to contribute to a blood-price under the covenant, agreed and then planned to drop a millstone on the Prophet ﷺ from a roof while he wa…
- 627 CE / 5 AH
The Battle of the Trench
In Shawwal of the fifth year after the Hijrah (627 CE), a coalition of around 10,000 men, Quraysh, Ghatafan and their allies, besieged the city of Madinah. On the advice of Salman …
Open the interactive battle map - 628 CE / 7 AH
The Battle of Khaybar
In Muharram of the seventh year after the Hijrah the Prophet ﷺ marched on Khaybar, the fortified oasis in the north whose chiefs had raised the confederates against Madinah two yea…
- 629 CE / 8 AH
The Battle of Muʾtah
Three thousand men were sent to the Byzantine frontier east of the Dead Sea after the killing of the Prophet's ﷺ envoy. At Muʾtah they met a force many times their size. The Prophe…
- 630 CE / 8 AH
The Conquest of Mecca
When Quraysh broke the treaty of al-Hudaybiyah by backing an ally against Khuzaʿah, the Prophet ﷺ moved on Mecca with ten thousand men. The army camped at Marr al-Zahran and lit te…
- 630 CE / 8 AH
The Battle of Hunayn
Two weeks after Mecca fell, Hawazin and Thaqif gathered under Malik ibn ʿAwf to fight the new power before it settled. Twelve thousand Muslims marched out, and some of them said al…
- 630 CE / 8 AH
The Siege of Taʾif
What was left of Thaqif after Hunayn shut itself inside the walls of Taʾif with a year's stores. The Muslims invested the town, used a mangonel and a testudo against the wall, and …
- 630 CE / 9 AH
The Expedition to Tabuk
Word came that Byzantium was massing on the northern frontier. The Prophet ﷺ called the army out openly, in the worst heat, at harvest, over seven hundred kilometres of desert — th…
The Rightly Guided Caliphs
13- 632 CE / 11 AH
Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ against Tulayha at Buzakhah
Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ leads the first army of the Ridda wars against the false prophet Tulayha al-Asadi and his Ghatafan allies. Four phases: the advance from Medina, the martyrdom…
Open the interactive battle map - 632 CE / 12 AH
The Battle of al-Yamamah
The bloodiest battle of the Ridda wars. Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ against Musaylimah and the Banu Hanifa in al-Yamamah. Nine phases: the advance, the first clash, the retreat to the ca…
Open the interactive battle map - 633 CE / 12 AH
Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁'s Iraq Campaign: Kazima to Hira
Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ opens the Sasanian front. Six phases: the Battle of Chains at Kazima, the Battle of al-Madhar, the Battle of Walaja with its famous pincer movement, the Battl…
Open the interactive battle map - 636 CE / 15 AH
The Battle of Yarmuk
Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁ defeats the great Byzantine army of Heraclius at the Yarmuk valley. Six phases: the approach, Khalid's feigned retreat, the ambush in the wadi, the fight at t…
Open the interactive battle map - 636 CE / 16 AH
The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah
Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqas ﵁ defeats the main army of the Sassanid empire under Rustam ibn Farrukhzad. Six phases: the approach along the Atiq canal, the "Day of Disorder" with the first …
Open the interactive battle map - 637 CE / 17 AH
Siege and Fall of Jerusalem & the Umariyya Treaty
Abu ʿUbayda ibn al-Jarrah ﵁ surrounds Jerusalem; Patriarch Sophronius demands that only the caliph may conclude the treaty. ʿUmar ibn al-Khattab ﵁ travels in person from Medina to …
Open the interactive battle map - 642 CE / 21 AH
Nahavand — Fath al-Futuh
Nuʿman ibn Muqarrin al-Muzani ﵁ defeats the last organized Sassanid force in the mountain valley of Nahavand. Six phases: the approach through the mountain pass, the feigned retrea…
Open the interactive battle map - 647 CE / 27 AH
The Battle of Sbeitla (Sufetula)
ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ﵁ leads twenty thousand horsemen from Egypt into Ifriqiya. At Sufetula (Sbeitla) they meet the army of the Patrician Gregory, exarch of Africa, with his Berber a…
Open the interactive battle map - 655 CE / 34 AH
The Battle of the Masts (Dhat al-Sawari)
Off the Lycian coast near Phoenix, the Muslims under ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ibn Abi Sarh ﵁ defeat the Byzantine fleet of Emperor Constans II. By binding their ships together with ropes…
Open the interactive battle map - 656 CE / 35 AH
Siege and Martyrdom of ʿUthman ﵁
Dhul-Hijjah 35 AH: rebels from Egypt, Kufa and Basra surround Medina and besiege the house of ʿUthman ﵁. Six phases: the gathering of the rebels, the encirclement and first demands…
Open the interactive battle map - 656 CE / 36 AH
The Battle of the Camel (Jamal)
Outside Basra, ʿAli ﵁ meets the coalition of Talha ﵁, Zubayr ﵁ and Aisha ﵂, who have ridden out to demand retribution for the blood of ʿUthman ﵁. After three days of negotiations, …
Open the interactive battle map - 657 CE / 37 AH
The Battle of Siffin
On the Euphrates plain of Siffin, west of modern Raqqa, the armies of ʿAli ﵁ and Muʿawiya ﵁ meet in the largest pitched battle between Muslims in the first fitnah. Months of skirmi…
Open the interactive battle map - 658 CE / 38 AH
The Battle of Nahrawan
At the Nahrawan canal east of Mada'in, ʿAli ﵁ destroys the Khariji rebellion in a brief but decisive action. The Khawarij, discontented with the arbitration of Siffin, have gathere…
Open the interactive battle map
History of Islam in West Africa
9- 1235 CE / 632 AH
The Battle of Kirina
Around 1235, Sundiata Keita and his Mande coalition defeated the Sosso army of Sumanguru Kanté on the plain of Kirina. The victory laid the foundation of the Mali Empire and became…
Open the interactive battle map - 1473 CE / 877 AH
The Siege of Djenné
In 1473 the island city of Djenné, in the inland delta of the Niger, passed out of Mali's orbit into the Songhay state after a blockade that closed the water and the land together.…
Open the interactive battle map - 1493 CE / 898 AH
The Battle of Anfao
On 12 April 1493, outside Gao, the Songhay general Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr Ture defeated Sonni Baru, son and heir of Sunni Ali Ber. The Sonni dynasty ended on that field and the Aski…
Open the interactive battle map - 1591 CE / 1000 AH
The Battle of Tondibi
On 13 March 1591, a Saadi-Moroccan expedition of four thousand men under Judar Pasha defeated the Songhai army of Askia Ishaq II at Tankondibogho near Tondibi, north of Gao. The fi…
- 1804 CE / 1219 AH
The Battle of Tsuntua
Late 1804: weeks after being thrown back from the wall of Alkalawa, the jama'a of Usman dan Fodio ﵀ went out again and was destroyed in open ground beside the same capital. Between…
Open the interactive battle map - 1804 CE / 1219 AH
The Battle of Tabkin Kwotto
The first great battle of the Fulani Jihad. On 21 June 1804, the jama'a of Usman dan Fodio, under the command of Abdullahi dan Fodio and Umaru al-Kammu, defeated a more numerous ar…
Open the interactive battle map - 1808 CE / 1223 AH
The Battle of Alkalawa
The fall of Alkalawa, capital of Gobir, in October 1808. Under the command of Muhammad Bello, Ali Jedo, and Aliyu Jedo, the city was taken after three earlier failed assaults. Sult…
Open the interactive battle map - 1818 CE / 1233 AH
The Battle of Noukouma
On 21 March 1818 a small, lightly armed jama'a under Seku Amadu ﵀ met a far larger Bamana-led coalition on waterlogged ground in the inland delta of the Niger. The coalition attack…
Open the interactive battle map - 1903 CE / 1321 AH
The Fall of Sokoto and the Battle of Burmi
In March 1903 the twelfth Caliph of Sokoto chose hijra over submission and walked east out of his capital with several thousand followers, repeating the withdrawal by which Usman d…
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The Heroes of Islam
3- 1845 CE / 1261 AH
Dargo and the Biscuit Disaster
In the summer of 1845 Prince Vorontsov marched about eighteen thousand men into the Chechen mountains to take Imam Shamil's ﵀ headquarters at Dargo, and took it: the village was em…
- 1857 CE / 1273 AH
The Siege of Fort de Médine
Between April and July 1857 al-Hajj Umar Tall ﵀ brought an army the French put at about twenty thousand fighters against a French fort held by sixty-four trained defenders, and cou…
- 1923 CE / 1341 AH
The Fight at Bir Bilal
In 1923 the Italian army in Cyrenaica pushed south to take the desert wells, because whoever held the water held the country the resistance fell back into. At Bir Bilal, a well for…
Orientalism
1- 1873 CE / 1322 AH
Aceh: the Line, and the Advice that Broke It
The Dutch invaded Aceh in 1873 and were thrown back with their commander dead. They took the capital the next year and won nothing by it: the sultan left, the resistance went inlan…