The Battle of Muʾtah

The Prophet’s ﷺ envoy to Bosra had been killed on Byzantine-allied ground, and an envoy was protected under every convention the region recognised. Three thousand men were sent to answer it — the largest force he had yet despatched without going himself, and it was going against the frontier of an empire.

At Maʿan they learned the Byzantines and their Ghassanid allies were massing at Masharif, a few days north, in numbers nobody had expected. The column halted for two nights while the men argued about whether to go on or send to Madinah for instructions.

ʿAbdullah ibn Rawahah ﵁ ended it: they had not come out for numbers, he said, but for the thing they were promised. They went on, and moved the meeting place west to Muʾtah to pick their own ground.

The armies met near Muʾtah. The standard passed exactly as the Prophet ﷺ had named it before they left.

Zayd ﵁ took it and was killed with the spears in front of him. Jaʿfar ﵁ took it; when his right hand was cut away he held it in his left, and when his left was cut away he held it against his chest with his arms until he fell. ʿAbdullah ibn Rawahah ﵁ took it, hesitated a moment at his own life, reproached himself in verse, and went forward and was killed.

In Madinah, the Prophet ﷺ described their deaths to the companions while they were happening.

Three named commanders were dead and the army was leaderless in front of an enemy it could not beat. Thabit ibn Arqam ﵁ picked up the standard and offered it to Khalid ibn al-Walid ﵁, a Muslim of only a few months. He refused, then took it.

What he did that night is why the day is remembered. He changed the order of his squadrons — wings, van and rear all moved — so the faces and banners the enemy saw at dawn were not the ones from the day before, and made a show of a fresh column coming up from the rear.

The enemy could not tell whether it was fighting the same army or a reinforced one, and hesitated. That hesitation was the opening.

Khalid ﵁ disengaged and brought the army south without it turning into a rout. A withdrawal in contact with a stronger enemy is harder than a charge, and that is the achievement of Muʾtah: three thousand went out against a force many times their size and the great majority came home.

The road back ran the length of the Hijaz, some eleven hundred kilometres from Muʾtah to Madinah, past Tabuk and al-Hijr.

When they arrived people threw dust at them and called them runaways. The Prophet ﷺ said they were not runaways but men who would return to the fight. He was right: within two years the road north was taken again, and the frontier they had touched here was crossed for good.