mâd ibn-ʿAmr an-Naṣîbi:—The ʿâmil of Naṣîbîn wrote to Muʿâwiyah, ʿUthmân's governor over Syria and Mesopotamia, complaining that some of the Moslems in his company had fallen victim to the scorpions. Muʿâwiyah wrote back instructing him to demand of the inhabitants in each quarter of the city a fixed number of scorpions to be brought every evening. This he did. They used to bring the scorpions before him, and he would order that they be killed.
Ḳarḳîsiya, the Euphrates forts and other places reduced. Abu-Aiyûb al-Muʾaddab ar-Raḳḳi from abu-ʿAbdallâh al-Ḳarḳasâni's sheikhs:—When ʿUmair ibn-Saʿd captured Raʾs al-ʿAin he made his way across and beyond al-Khâbûr[1] to Ḳarḳîsiya whose people had violated the covenant. With them he made terms similar to those made before, and then advanced against the forts along the course of the Euphrates one after the other, which he reduced all on the same terms as Ḳarḳîsiya. In none of them did he meet severe resistance. Some of them would sometimes throwstones at him. When he was through with Talbas[2] and ʿÂnât,[3] he came to an-Naʾûsah, Âlûsah[4] and Hît where he found out that ʿAmmâr ibn-Yâsir, the ʿâmil of ʿUmar ibn-al-Khaṭṭâb over al-Kûfah, had sent an army for the invasion of the region above al-Anbâr, under the leadership of Saʿd ibn-ʿAmr ibn-Ḥarâm al-Anṣâri. The holders of these forts had come to Saʿd and demanded peace, which he arranged with them, retaining one-half of the church of Hît. ʿUmair, therefore, kept on his way to ar-Raḳḳah.
I learned from certain scholars that the one who went against Hît and the forts beyond in al-Kûfah was Midlâj
