Page:Baladhuri-Hitti1916.djvu/411

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The Conquest of as-Sawâd
395

mân used to get their subsistence allowances from it. Seeing what had befallen them, the inhabitants of al-Anbâr made terms which satisfied Khâlid, and so he left them in their homes.

Others assert that Khâlid sent al-Muthanna before him to Baghdâdh and then followed him and directed the raid against it, after which he returned to al-Anbâr. This, however, is not authentic.

Al-Ḥusain ibn-al-Aswad from ash-Shaʿbi:—The people of al-Anbâr have a covenant [with the Moslems].

A tradition communicated to me by certain sheikhs from al-Anbâr states that terms were concluded with the people of al-Anbâr in the caliphate of ʿUmar in which it was stipulated that they pay for their canton [ṭassûj] 400,000 dirhams and 1,000 cloaks fabricated in Ḳaṭawân, per year. The terms were made by Jarîr ibn-ʿAbdallâh al-Bajali. Others say that the sum was 80,000; but Allah knows best.

Jarîr reduced Bawâzâj al-Anbâr in which are to-day many of his freedmen.

According to a report there came to Khâlid ibn-al-Walîd someone who pointed out to him a market above al-Anbâr in which the Kalb, Bakr ibn-Wâʾil and others from the tribe of Ḳuḍâʿah used to meet. Khâlid despatched against this place al-Muthanna ibn-Ḥârithah who made a raid against it, carried as booty what there was in it, slaughtered and took captives.

ʿAin at-Tamr. Thence Khalid advanced to ʿAin at-Tamr[1] and invested its fort in which a great frontier guard of Persians was stationed. The holders of the fort made a sally and fought, but after that, they confined themselves to their fort, where Khâlid and the Moslems besieged them until they sued for peace. Khâlid refused to give them

  1. Yâḳût, vol. iii, p. 759.