Abu Nujayd (1) also composed on that occasion(2):
[long-metre verse]
On the day of Jalula—the fierce encounter—
our battalions at dawn brought down scowling lions;
I shattered(3) the hosts of Persia and then laid them low—
perdition to the corpses of those unclean Magians!
Fayruzān slipped away from them by a mere draught,
while Mehrān was struck down on the day helmets were cleft.
They stayed in a land whose tryst was with death,
and swirling sands heap its soil upon them in drifting mounds(4).(5)
Account of the Conquest of Hulwan(6)
When the battle was over, Hāshim b. ʿUtbah remained at Jalula in compliance with ʿUmar b. al-Khattab’s letter to Saʿd, while al-Qaʿqaʿ b. ʿAmr advanced to Hulwan, likewise on ʿUmar’s orders, so as to reinforce the Muslims there and to monitor the Chosroes after his flight. He marched as earlier described, overtook the Persian commander—Mehran al-Rāzī—and killed him, although Fayruzān escaped. When Fayruzān reached the Chosroes and informed him of the affair at Jalula, the devastation that followed, the hundred thousand Persians slain, and Mehrān’s death, the Chosroes fled from Hulwan to Rayy and appointed over Hulwan a governor named Khusrawshunum(7).
Al-Qaʿqaʿ b. ʿAmr then advanced against him. Khusrawshunum rode out to meet him at a site outside Hulwan; they fought a fierce engagement until Allah opened the way and granted victory to the Muslims. Khusrawshunum was routed, and al-Qaʿqaʿ pressed on to Hulwan, accepted its surrender(8), and the Muslims entered the city, taking booty and captives. They remained there and imposed the jizyah on the surrounding districts and provinces after first inviting their people to embrace Islam; they refused everything except the jizyah(9). Al-Qaʿqaʿ stayed in Hulwan until Saʿd moved his headquarters from al-Madāʾin to Kufah, whereupon he proceeded to that city, as we shall relate—Allah willing.
The Conquest of Tikrit(10) and Mosul
When Saʿd had taken al-Madāʾin, word reached him that the people of Mosul had gathered at Tikrit around an unbeliever by the name of