PERSIANSenabling them to get off a volley of two thousand arrows at a time.176
The adoption of Persian-style armor and heavy cavalry methods by
Muslim armies included the use of the heavy Persian horse (Syr. bir-
dhawn), which was more noted for its endurance than for its speed.
By 657 a birdhawn market existed at Kufa, a particular breed called
the Mihraniyya was named after a mawla of 'Ubaydullah ibn Ziyad
named Mihran, and the ambling birdhawn was rated as one of the
excellences of Basra.l77 On the other hand, Muslims did not adopt
the use of elephants in warfare from the Sasanians but treated elephants
captured in Iraq as booty. 178
Along with such aspects of warfare, Persian military traditions in-
fluenced the use of armed servants and youths (Ar. ghulam, pi. ghil-
man) as auxiliaries on the battlefield by Muslims. This was as much
a social as a military institution, and the terms used for such persons
usually implied some sort of social inferiority-parallel to inferior
military ranks,-and the performance of menial tasks. The Asawira
mainly were responsible for the introduction of this practice into early
Islamic military institutions. One of them, a certain 'Abdullah ibn al-
I~bahanI, had four hundred such slaves (Ar. sg. mamluk) and was in
command of the right wing of the army for Mu~'ab ibn az-Zubayr
in the battle ending al~Mukhtar's revolt in Kufa in 687.179 It is no
surprise, then, to hear of the armed mawalf of 'Abd al-Malik ibn
'Amir ibn Kurayz in 683, since his father was so closely associated
with the Asawira.^180 However, this practice seems to have begun some-
what earlier, during the first civil war, when the oldest children of the
women taken captive during the conquest were reaching late adoles-
cence. Such mawalf were integrated into Muslim fighting forces either
as individuals attached to an Arab clan or person, or they were or-
ganized as retinues in the service of some of the leading, powerful
figures in the garrison cities. There were mawalf, ghilman, and servants
in both armies at Siffin in 656, such as Mihran, the mawla of Yazld
ibn Hiini:' in the army of 'All, who is called both ghulam and mamluk
and was in charge of a waterbag.^181
Afterwards, we hear of a retinue of ghilman and mawalf of Simak
176 Ibid., 11, 454.
177 Dinawari, Akhbiir aNiwiil, pp. 175,290; Ibn al-Faqih, Buldiin, p. 192.
178 Baladhuri, FutUlJ, p. 288.
179 Ibid., p. 366.
180 Tabari, Ta'rikh, 11, 464.
181 Dinawari, Akhbiir aNiwiil, pp. 177, 179, 188-89; Tabari, Ta'rlkh, 1, 3266-68.