Battle of al-Qadisiyyah

The Battle of al-Qadisiyyah was fought over several days, probably in November 636, near the Euphrates in what is now southern Iraq, between the armies of the Rashidun Caliphate and the Sasanian Empire of Persia. The Arab Muslim army under Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas defeated the Persians, whose commander, Rustam Farrokhzad, was killed. The victory opened the way to the Persian capital, Ctesiphon, and was one of the turning points of the early Muslim conquests.

The Sasanian Empire had fought a long and draining war with the Byzantine Empire from 602 to 628, which ended in defeat after the emperor Heraclius invaded Mesopotamia. Its shah, Khosrow II, was overthrown and killed by his own son, and years of civil war followed, with a rapid succession of rulers. In 632 the boy Yazdegerd III took the throne, while real power lay with generals such as Rustam.

After the death of Muhammad, the first caliph, Abu Bakr, united Arabia and sent armies against both great empires. The general Khalid ibn al-Walid won a series of battles in Iraq, but was then sent to fight the Byzantines in Syria. The Persians struck back and inflicted a heavy defeat on the Muslims at the Battle of the Bridge, and control of the fertile lands between the Tigris and Euphrates changed hands repeatedly. Yazdegerd is said to have sought an alliance with Heraclius to coordinate a counter-offensive, but the plan did not come together in time.

The second caliph, Umar, raised a new army from across Arabia and placed it under Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas, who camped at al-Qadisiyyah, a small town on a branch of the Euphrates, in the summer of 636. Months of diplomacy followed, in which Muslim envoys invited the Persians to accept Islam or pay tribute, without result. The size of the armies is uncertain. Some modern estimates put both at around 30,000; other figures for the Persians run from 50,000 to 100,000, and most scholars agree that the Persians had more men. Rustam's army included heavy cavalry and a corps of war elephants.

The fighting opened with single combats between champions. On the first day, the elephants threw the Muslim wings into disorder until archers and infantry, who cut the saddle girths of the elephants, drove them back. On the second day, veterans arrived from Syria, where the Muslims had just defeated the Byzantines at Yarmouk; according to the chronicles, their commander, al-Qa'qa ibn Amr, sent them in small groups to make the reinforcement look larger. On the third day the elephants returned, but were blinded and driven off, and fighting went on through the night. On the fourth day the Muslims renewed their attack and Rustam was killed. Accounts of his death differ, and some are probably later legends. The Persian army collapsed; part of it escaped across the river, and many were killed or captured in the pursuit.

The victors took great spoils, including the jewelled royal banner of the Sasanians. Within months they besieged Ctesiphon, which fell in 637, and the Persians lost Mesopotamia. Veterans of the battle enjoyed the highest prestige among the Arab settlers of Iraq and its great garrison town, Kufa. A last great Persian effort was defeated at Nahavand in the early 640s, and Yazdegerd III was killed in 651, ending the Sasanian dynasty. In 2024 British and Iraqi archaeologists identified the likely battlefield, south of modern Kufa.

Our 600 map shows the Sasanian Empire before the Arab conquests, and our 700 map shows its former lands inside the Umayyad Caliphate, the Rashidun state's successor. The battlefield lies in modern Iraq.