The Battle of Sbeitla (Sufetula)

After the final consolidation of Egypt, ʿUthman ﵁ appointed ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ibn Abi Sarh ﵁ in 27 AH to lead a campaign into Ifriqiya. The occasion was twofold: on the one hand, the dangers that the Byzantine exarch Gregorius, who had declared himself independent of Constantinople, posed to Egypt’s western frontier; on the other, the wealth of Africa Province, of which the Muslims had already received reports through Egyptian merchants.

Twenty thousand horsemen were assembled in Upper Egypt. The troops were mixed: Arab horsemen from the Hijaz, experienced in the Egyptian conquest; Egyptian cavalry, recruited in the garrisons of Fustat and Alexandria; and reinforcements from the Levant, sent by Muʿawiyah ﵁ at the khalifah’s request. ʿUthman ﵁ had explicitly instructed ʿAbdullah ﵁: if Gregorius submitted, peace; if he resisted, battle; and in either case no permanent occupation after the campaign, for the Muslim forces were needed elsewhere.

In Rajab 27 AH the main army departed from Aswan, westward through the Khargah oasis, then northward to Barqa (Cyrenaica). In Barqa the provisioning was completed: grain and water for the march ahead; local guides who knew the mountain passes and oases between Barqa and Tripolis; and reconnaissance sent forward. From Barqa the army marched through Cyrenaica, past Tripolis (which already fell under Muslim administration), and then inland toward Sufetula. The scouting parties brought in the first detailed reports of Gregorius’ concentrations at Sbeitla: a large army, but not yet fully mobilized.

Gregorius, the Patrician and exarch of Africa, had declared his independence from Constantinople early in 27 AH — a consequence of the weak authority with which Constans II ruled the empire, and of Gregorius’ own ambition. When word of the approaching Muslim march reached him, he mobilized his power. The Byzantine garrison of Sufetula was reinforced; the troops of Carthage were called south to Sbeitla; and the Berber tribal allies, who formally stood under Byzantine suzerainty, were called to arms.

The numbers the Muslim sources mention — one hundred and twenty thousand — are presumably exaggerated. More realistic is a total strength of sixty to eighty thousand, a large part of which were Berber tribal levies of varying discipline. Gregorius himself, an experienced commander with decades of Byzantine field experience, chose a crescent formation with Sufetula as its anchor point. The heavy infantry center at the town itself; the Berber left and right flanks on the outstretched arms of the crescent; a mobile cavalry reserve behind the center. The intention was simple: to crush the Muslim attackers by numerical superiority, and drive them off toward the mountains in the east, where no escape would be possible.

Gregorius established his headquarters in a painted pavilion on elevated ground near Sufetula. It was said that he had brought his daughter, a princess renowned for her beauty, along on the campaign — a sign of his confidence in victory, or a clumsy miscalculation, depending on the source. The Muslim scouts observed the pavilion, and brought the position and extent of the Byzantine deployment back to ʿAbdullah ﵁'s camp.

On the evening before the main battle, ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ﵁ held council with his commanders. The Muslim position was ten kilometers south of Sufetula, on gently sloping terrain that gave the cavalry the ability to cover ground quickly. ʿAbdullah ﵁ decided not to commit the entire Muslim force in the opening engagement; he would challenge the Berber vanguard, withdraw, and force Gregorius to break his formation in order to follow the attack.

At daybreak the Muslim light cavalry — about two thousand horsemen — rode forward, in a wide arc toward the Berber right wing. The Berber vanguard, some three hundred lightly armed horsemen, moved out to intercept the Muslims. It became a short, sharp skirmish. The Muslim horsemen were better armed, better disciplined, and — decisively — better trained in organized retreat. When the Berber vanguard came forward, the Muslims gave way in an orderly feigned retreat.

The Berber wing commander, stung into action by the apparent victory, asked and received Gregorius’ permission to push his entire right flank forward. The crescent formation thereby lost its coherence on the right side. ʿAbdullah ﵁ saw the movement from his command post and gave the order he had prepared the entire campaign for: the Muslim center and the Muslim right flank swung at an angle against the exposed Berber right flank, and the cavalry reserve was held ready for the breakthrough under Az-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwam ﵁ (present on the campaign according to some traditions).

Gregorius saw it too late. He ordered his center forward to support the right flank, but the distance was too great, and the Muslim attack already had momentum. The vanguard skirmish had proven to be the Muslim trap.

The main battle unfolded in the hours around midday. ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ﵁'s attack on the Byzantine right wing — the junction between the Byzantine center and the overstretched Berber right flank — was concentrated, hard, and executed at exactly the right moment. The Muslim cavalry smashed through the junction; the Berber tribal discipline broke under the first fierce assault, and the right flank began to dissolve.

Gregorius, seeing the right flank falling apart, did what an experienced Byzantine commander would do: he rode personally to the threatened flank to restore morale. He took his imperial guard unit with him — three hundred to five hundred heavy horsemen — and dashed toward the collapsing right flank. It was a tactical gamble, and it failed. Gregorius was intercepted, in the midst of his rallying attempt, by a group of Muslim cavalrymen. Which Muslim warrior struck the fatal blow remains disputed in the sources; some accounts name Az-Zubayr ﵁, others name a subordinate commander of ʿAbdullah ﵁. Tabari is ambiguous: “Gregorius fell in the attack, his horse trampled, his standard captured.”

With the death of Gregorius, Byzantine morale departed. The imperial guard units attempted a fighting withdrawal; the Berber tribal contingents broke and fled. ʿAbdullah ﵁‘s brother-in-arms in command, az-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwam ﵁ (present on the campaign according to some traditions), led the pursuit against the collapsing Byzantine right flank. The sweetest of the spoils — Gregorius’ painted pavilion, with the banner and the paintings and the daughter — fell into Muslim hands. The daughter was, according to later traditions, treated with respect and given in marriage to a Muslim officer; some sources, however, deny this and speak of her return to Constantinople.

In the days after the fall of Gregorius, the Byzantine remnant fled. ʿAbdullah ibn Saʿd ﵁ deliberately mounted no pursuit to annihilation; instead he consolidated around Sufetula and awaited the remaining Byzantine authorities. Within a week, negotiators came from Carthage — clergy and surviving officers — to discuss terms.

The negotiations led to an indemnity whose figures vary in the sources. Tabari mentions seven hundred thousand dinars; other sources speak of an annual tribute in gold; still others give far higher numbers. ʿUthman ﵁ had clearly instructed ʿAbdullah ﵁: indemnity, no permanent occupation. The Muslim forces were stretched thin between Egypt, the Levant, the naval campaigns and the internal consolidation of the caliphate. Occupying Ifriqiya would demand more men than were available at that moment.

The indemnity was delivered in gold, silver and goods. Per Tabari, each Muslim warrior received about a thousand dinars as his share of the spoils — some traditions raise it to three thousand dinars. The khums share was set aside for ʿUthman ﵁ in Medina. A separate portion was allotted to Marwan, which in later years would become a central point of the criticism against ʿUthman ﵁.

After three months of consolidation and collection, ʿAbdullah ﵁ marched his army back to Egypt, via Tripolis and Barqa. The Byzantine administration formally regained Sufetula; the Muslim victory was tactically complete but strategically limited. Africa Province would wait another two generations for its definitive conquest, which would be completed under the Umayyads in 50 AH. But the Battle of Sbeitla had definitively broken the prestige of the Byzantine administration of Africa.