24 ISLAM AT WAR
against the Persian force. Fighting continued into the night. On the third
day, the elephants were put back into the fight, but their magic was gone,
and Saad ordered the brave chief Qaqaa to deal with them. This he did
by dismounting his men and attacking the beast’s eyes with long spears.
Again, after the sun set, fighting continued into the dark. This time it
was probably a planned attack. The nomads, who loved to compare them-
selves to wolves, liked to raid at night, and now their individual skill
would be more of an asset against the serried ranks of the more formally
trained Persian soldiers.
On the fourth day, with both armies nearing exhaustion, a sandstorm
blew out of the southwest, and the Persians, with wind and sand in their
eyes, broke. Rustem was killed and the King of Kings’ army was irretriev-
ably shattered.
This Battle of Qadasiya, fought in spring of 637, sounded the death
knell of the old Persian Empire. Only ten years earlier their armies had
occupied Syria and Egypt and had been battering at the gates of Byzan-
tium. Despite additional tokens of resistance, after Qadasiya the empire
fell to pieces. The Arab forces were slowed more by the weight of their
loot than by Yezdegird’s rear guards.
This victory was astonishing in its own right. A mighty nation had been
defeated on its own ground by a motley assortment of tribal nomads. No
wonder Muthanna said, “In the days of Ignorance a hundred Persians
could defeat a thousand Arabs, but now, God be praised, a hundred Arabs
can put to flight a thousand Persians.”
Even Western skeptics may wonder about the divine nature of the Is-
lamic conquest, for the campaign against Persia was but one of two fights
that the infant religion fought simultaneously. The two enemies of these
campaigns, Persia and Byzantium, were the greatest powers in the Middle
East, and both were simultaneously smashed by an enemy with neither
experience, nor wealth, nor numbers.
The Byzantine Empire draws scant attention in the English-speaking
world today. Instead we focus on the Roman Empire, which may have
had two or three centuries in the sun, but the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman
Empire, lasted for a thousand years. The Byzantines, Greeks, or Ro-
mans—they were known as all three—were the heirs to the political, cul-
tural, and military legacy of the whole Mediterranean basin. They were
also the keepers of the military might of Christianity. Rome had become
Christian officially in the fourth century. By the seventh century, the most
powerful bishops were appointed by the Orthodox Church in the east.
Thus, the Islamic storm about to break on Byzantine Syria would chal-
lenge the empire on every level.