17 – Al-Qāsim ibn Hāshim related to me; Abū al-Yamān narrated to us; Safwān ibn ʿAmr, from Abū Yaḥyā, from Isḥāq al-Ghazwānī, who said:

Azdamhar advanced against us near the city of al-Kiraj with eighty elephants. The horses and the battle lines were on the verge of scattering, and this distressed Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim. He summoned ʿImrān ibn al-Nuʿmān, the commander of the troops from Ḥimṣ, together with the other field leaders, but when they rose to meet the threat they could not prevail. When every stratagem failed him, he cried out repeatedly, “la ḥawla wa-lā quwwata illā billāh” (“There is no might and no power except with Allah”). Through that invocation Allah checked the elephants, sent upon them an intense heat that scorched them, so they stampeded toward the water. Their trainers and keepers were unable to restrain them. At that moment the cavalry charged, and—by Allah’s permission—victory was secured.