Battle of al-Asnam

Battle of al-Asnam
Part of the Berber Revolt
Date 742 Location al-Asnam (near Qayrawan) Result Umayyad victory
Belligerents
Umayyad Caliphate	Berber insurgents
Commanders and leaders
Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi	Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari †
Strength
Unknown	300,000 men[1]
Casualties and losses
Unknown	180,000+ killed[2][a]

The Battle of al-Asnam (Arabic: معركة الأصنام) was a military engagement between the Umayyad governor of Ifriqya, Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi, and the Sufrite Berber insurgents led by Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari. The Umayyads decisively defeated the Berber army, saving Qayrawan and Ifriqiya from the Berber rebels.^[2]

Background

In 742 AD, a large two-Berber army marched to attack Qayrawan, one led by Oqasha ibn Ayub al-Fezari and the other by Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari. Urgent to meet Oqasha on the battlefield, Handhala dispatched an army of 40,000 cavalry led by a Lakhmite to meet Abd al-Wahid, and fought for a month before they were defeated and lost half of their army.^[4] Handhala defeated Oqasha at the battle of al-Qarn and executed him, but withdrew after suffering heavy casualties and prepared for Abd al-Wahid. In Kairouan, Handhala recruited the inhabitants and armed them, and raised around 5,000 infantry and 5,000 archers.^[4] Handhala also dug a trench around the city and is said to have wanted to retreat and write to the caliph for reinforcements after seeing the size of Oqasha's army.^[5]

Battle

Handhala marched to meet the Berbers in a place called al-Asnam, near Qayrawan.^[6] The Berbers were 3 miles away from Qayrawan, and they had a large army of around 300,000 men under Abd al-Wahid.^[1][2][4][7] When they lined up for battle, the Islamic scholars played a major role in urging the people of Qayrawan to wage jihad and fight the Kharijite Berber rebels, reminding them of what the Kharajites did to women by enslaving them, to children by making them slaves, and to men by killing them — so the men drew their swords from their sheaths. The women came out to encourage the men to stand firm on the battlefield.^[1] The Arab left flank was overwhelmed by the Berber right flank and was soon to break, however after a bitter fighting between both sides, the Arabs defeated the Berber left and the center. It was not long before the Arab left flank regained its position, repulsed the Berbers and pursued them to Djeloula, killing many of them in the battle. Abd al-Wahid's army was slaughtered.^[5] Due to the large number of dead, Handhala ordered a count of the casualties, but the people were unable to do so until they counted them with reeds, and the number of Berbers killed amounted to over 180,000, including Abd al-Wahid.^[1][2] Abd al-Wahid's body was found and his head was decapitated and shown to Handhala.^[1][8][9]

According to the American historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship, the claim by medieval Muslim sources^[b] that the number of Berber dead at al-Asnam were one hundred eighty thousand "is an exaggeration not to be trusted even in a vague way, as it may have been invented by the caliphal tradition to counterbalance the earlier record of utter failure in the Berber war."^[3]

Handhala reported the victory to Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, who was delighted to hear the news.^{[10][11][12][1]}

Following the two Umayyad victories, Al-Layth ibn Sa'd is said to have remarked: "No battle has been intense since the Battle of Badr than the Arabs' battle of al-Asnam."^[1][2] It was said by scholars that "there is no massacre on earth greater than this."^[13]

See also

• Tangier expedition (740)
• Battle of the Nobles
• Battle of Bagdoura
• Battle of al-Qarn

Notes

1. Likely exaggerated^[3]
2. Al-Raqiq al-Qayrawani, Ibn al-Athir and Ibn 'Idhari

References

1. Hamouda 2007, p. 143.
2. Henri Fournel (1857). Étude sur la conquête de l'Afrique par les Arabes et recherches sur les tribus berbères qui ont occupé le Maghreb central (in French). unknown library. Impr. Impériale. pp. 79–81.
3. Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihad State: The Reign of Hishām Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. SUNY Press. p. 344. The last three sources say that the number of dead berbers at al-Asnam were one hundred eighty thousand, which is an exaggeration not to be trusted even in a vague way, as it may have been invented by the caliphal tradition to counterbalance the earlier record of utter failure in the Berber war.
4. al-Nuwayri, p. 33.
5. Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994-06-28). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. State University of New York Press. p. 217. ISBN 978-0-7914-9683-1.
6. By Jamil M. Abun-Nasr (1987). A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge University Press. p. 39. ISBN 978-0-521-33767-0.
7. Hopkins, J. F. P. (June 1959). "Ibn Khaldūn: Histoire des Berbères et des dynasties musulmanes de l'Afrique septentrionale. Traduite de l'arabe par le Baron de Slane. Nouvelle édition publiée sous la direction de Paul Casanova. Tome quatrième … publié par Henri Pérès. [iii], 628 pp. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1956". Bulletin of SOAS. 22 (2): 363. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00069184. ISSN 1474-0699.
8. Ahmad_ibn_Khalid_an-Nasiri, al-Istiqsa li-Akhbar duwal al-Maghrib al-Aqsa Vol I, p. 169 [1]
9. Ibn_'Idhari, Kitāb al-bayān al-mughrib fī akhbār al-Andalus wa-al-Maghrib, Vol I, p.89 [2]
10. al-Nuwayri, p. 34.
11. an-Nasiri, p. 170
12. Ibn 'Idhari, p. 90
13. ʿIḏārī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad Ibn (1848). Bayān al-muġrib fī aḵbār al-Maġrib (in Arabic). Brill. p. 46.

Sources

• al-Nuwayri, Shihab al-Din. Nihāyat al-arab fī funūn al-adab (in Arabic).
• Hamouda, Abdul Hamid Hussein (2007). تاريخ المغرب في العصر الإسلامي منذ الفتح الإسلامي وحتى قيام الدولة الفاطمية (History of the Maghreb in the Islamic Era: From the Islamic Conquest to the Rise of the Fatimid State) (in Arabic). Cairo: Cultural House for Publishing (الدار الثقافية للنشر).