—places where numerous beasts of burden drowned, and throngs of men sank into the mud. They did not make it out until they had endured formidable hardships and terrifying ordeals (1).

In that same year Ashras ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Sulamī, the deputy governor of Khurasan, summoned the ahl al-dhimmah of Samarqand and the lands beyond the Oxus to embrace Islam, promising to waive the jizyah for them. They accepted his offer and the majority of them became Muslim (2). He then demanded the jizyah from them, so they declared war on him and fought. Many battles ensued between him and the Turks—events that Ibn Jarīr relates at far greater length than is necessary (3).

In this year also, the Commander of the Faithful Hishām dispatched ʿUbaydah (4) to Ifriqiyah as its governor. Once there, ʿUbaydah equipped his son and brother with an army; they met the polytheists in battle, killed a great number of them, captured their patricius, routed the remainder, and the Muslims seized abundant spoils.

That same year Muʿāwiyah ibn Hishām captured two fortresses in Byzantine territory and took copious booty.

In the same year (5) the pilgrimage was led by Ibrāhīm ibn Hishām ibn Ismāʿīl, governor of the Two Sanctuaries and al-Ṭāʾif. Khālid al-Qasrī was in charge of Iraq, and Ashras al-Sulamī of Khurasan.

Deaths recorded for this year:

Jarīr the poet (6): He is Jarīr ibn al-Khaṭafā—some say Jarīr ibn ʿAṭiyyah ibn al-Khaṭafā. Al-Khaṭafā’s given name was Ḥudhayfah ibn Badr ibn Salamah ibn ʿAwf ibn Kulayb ibn Yarbuʿ ibn Ḥanẓalah ibn Mālik ibn Zayd Manāt ibn Tamīm ibn Murr ibn Udd ibn Ṭābikhah ibn Ilyās ibn Muḍar ibn Nizār. His kunya was Abū Ḥazrah (7). A Basran poet, he traveled to Damascus several times, praising Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān, and the latter’s sons—al-Walīd, Sulaymān, and Yazīd—and he visited ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. His contemporaries who vied with him were al-Farazdaq and al-Akhṭal, yet Jarīr surpassed them in poetic skill and merit. More than one critic has said that he was the foremost of the three.