Then, after the engagement we have just described, all of them returned and claimed that the Persians had forced them to violate their covenants and had exacted from them the kharāj (land tax) and other levies. The Muslims accepted that excuse in order (1) to win their hearts. We shall set out the legal ruling concerning the people of (2) the Sawād in our book Al-Aḥkām al-Kabīr, if Allah wills.
(Ibn Isḥāq and others maintained that the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah took place in 15 AH. Al-Wāqidī asserted that it occurred in 16 AH, whereas Sīf ibn ʿUmar and a number of scholars dated it to 14 AH; it is in that year that Ibn Jarīr also recorded it (3). Allah knows best.)
Ibn Jarīr (4) and al-Wāqidī stated: In the year 14 AH, ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb gathered the people behind Ubayy ibn Kaʿb for the tarāwīḥ prayer during the month of Ramadan, and he wrote to all the provinces instructing them to assemble for the standing in prayer throughout Ramadan.
Ibn Jarīr (5) also said: In that same year ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb dispatched ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān to Basra, ordering him to settle there (6) with the Muslims who were with him, thus—according to the report of al-Madaʾinī—cutting off the Persians’ supply lines to those at al-Madāʾin and its surroundings.
He added: Sīf claimed that Basra was not founded until the spring of 16 AH, and that ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān did not depart for Basra from al-Madāʾin until Saʿd had completed the campaigns of Jalūlāʾ and Tikrīt; Saʿd sent him there at the command of ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with him.
Abū Mikhnaf (7) reported—through Mujālid, from al-Shaʿbī—that ʿUmar, may Allah be pleased with him, sent ʿUtbah ibn Ghazwān to the land of Basra with three hundred-plus men. Arab tribesmen then joined him (8) until his force numbered five hundred. They arrived in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of 14 AH. At that time Basra was called Arḍ al-Hind; it was strewn with rough white stones. ʿUtbah kept scouting out a campsite until they came opposite the Small Bridge, where (9) halfa grass and reeds were growing, and there they encamped.
The governor of the Euphrates advanced against them with four thousand cavalrymen (10). ʿUtbah met him after the sun had passed its zenith, ordered the Companions to charge, and they killed every last Persian, capturing the governor of the Euphrates.
ʿUtbah then rose to address the troops and said in his sermon: “This world has announced its severance (11); it is speeding away (12); nothing of it remains…”