First battle of Dongola | |||||||
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Part of the Muslim conquests | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Rashidun Caliphate | Kingdom of Makuria | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Uqba ibn Nafi [2] | Qalidurut | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
20,000 Cavalry [3] | 8,000–10,000 Archers and Cavalry [4] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
10,000–15,000 dead [5] [1] | c. 1,000 dead c. 1,000 wounded |
The first battle of Dongola took place between the early Muslim Rashidun army and the Oriental Orthodox Christian Nubians of the Makuria in 642.
The battle, which resulted in a Makurian victory, halted Arab incursions into Nubia and set the tone for an atmosphere of hostility between the two cultures until the culmination of the second battle of Dongola in 652.
In the sixth century, the area that had once been under the domination of the Kingdom of Kush converted to Christianity. This included the kingdoms of Alodia, Makuria and Nobatia, which rested on Egypt's southern border. Over a century later, Islam united the Arabs into an expanding military and political force by 632.
In 640, the military leader Amr ibn al-As conquered Byzantine Egypt. To consolidate Muslim control over Egypt, it was inevitable to secure its western and southern borders. Amr accordingly sent expeditions to Byzantine North Africa and Makuria's Nubia.
In 642, Amr ibn al-As sent a column of 20,000 horsemen under his cousin Uqba ibn Nafi against Makuria. They managed to get as far as Dongola, the capital of Makuria. However, in a rare turn of events, the Arab forces were beaten back. [3]
According to historian al-Baladhuri, the Muslims found that the Nubians fought strongly and met them with showers of arrows. The majority of the Arab forces returned with wounded and blinded eyes. It was thus that the Nubians were called 'the pupil smiters'. [2] Al-Baladhuri also states, quoting from one of his sources that went to Nubia twice during the rule of Umar: "One day they came out against us and formed a line; we wanted to use swords, but we were not able to, and they shot at us and put out eyes to the number of one hundred and fifty." [5]
The Nubian victory at Dongola was one of the Rashidun Caliphate's rare defeats during the mid-7th century. With their archers' deadly accuracy plus their own experienced cavalry forces, Makuria was able to shake al-Amr's confidence enough for him to withdraw his forces from Nubia. [4]
Arab sources claim that the expedition into Nubia was not a Muslim defeat while at the same time acknowledging it was not a success. [6] The expedition into Nubia, as well as the more successful expedition into Byzantine North Africa, were undertaken by 'Amr ibn al-'As on his own accord. He believed that they would be easy victories and would inform the caliph after the conquests. [1]
The Arab sources also make it clear there were no pitched battles in Nubia. Yet, they do mention an encounter whereupon Uqba ibn Nafi and his forces happened upon a concentration of Nubians that promptly gave battle before the Muslims could attack. In the ensuing engagement, he claims 150 Muslims lost an eye. [1]
Arab sources lend more credit to Nubian guerrilla tactics than a single decisive engagement. They claim that the Nubians would call out to their Muslim adversaries from afar where they would like their arrow wound. The Muslims would jokingly respond, and the arrow would strike them there invariably. This statement, along with a claim that Nubian horsemen were superior to Muslim cavalry in hit-and-run tactics, was used to support their position that the Nubians were besting them in skirmishes and not all-out battles. [1]
Regardless of the situation, Uqba ibn Nafi was unable to succeed with his expedition and wrote back to his cousin that he could not win against such tactics and that Nubia was a very poor land with no treasure worth fighting for. Uqba may not have been exaggerating, since Nubia is surrounded by formidable deserts. Upon receiving this news, Amr bin al-As asked his cousin to withdraw, which he did. [6]
Al-Baladhuri states 'Amr decided to withdraw his forces for two principal reasons: that there was little treasure to be had (Though Nubia was rich in Gold and agricultural Produce), and that the Nubian military proved considerable. Thus, it was thought better to make peace. However; he was unwilling to stop campaigning elsewhere, and peace between Muslim Egypt and Christian Makuria only really materialized upon the succession of Abdullah Ibn Sa'ad in 645. [5] This peace would last until the second battle of Dongola, whose outcome would result in one of the longest peace treaties in recorded history.
The 7th century is the period from 601 through 700 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era.
The 640s decade ran from January 1, 640, to December 31, 649.
Year 652 (DCLII) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 652 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Year 642 (DCXLII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 642 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Mu'awiya I was the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 661 until his death. He became caliph less than thirty years after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and immediately after the four Rashidun ('rightly-guided') caliphs. Unlike his predecessors, who had been close, early companions of Muhammad, Mu'awiya was a relatively late follower of the Islamic prophet.
Nubians are a Nilo-Saharan ethnic group indigenous to the region which is now Northern Sudan and Southern Egypt. They originate from the early inhabitants of the central Nile valley, believed to be one of the earliest cradles of civilization. In the southern valley of Egypt, Nubians differ culturally and ethnically from Egyptians, although they intermarried with members of other ethnic groups, especially Arabs. They speak Nubian languages as a mother tongue, part of the Northern Eastern Sudanic languages, and Arabic as a second language.
Makuria was a medieval Nubian kingdom in what is today northern Sudan and southern Egypt. Its capital was Dongola in the fertile Dongola Reach, and the kingdom is sometimes known by the name of its capital.
The Baqt (بقط) was a 7th-century treaty between the Christian state of Makuria and the new Muslim rulers of Egypt. Lasting almost seven hundred years, it is by some measures the longest-lasting treaty in history. The name comes either from the Egyptian's term for barter, or the Greco-Roman term for pact.
Banu Kanz, also known as Awlad Kanz, was a semi-nomadic Muslim dynasty of Arab descent that ruled the border region between Upper Egypt and Nubia between the 10th and 15th centuries. They were descended from the sons of sheikhs of the Arab Banu Hanifa tribe who intermarried with the princesses of the Beja Hadariba tribe. They gained official control over the region of Aswan, Wadi Allaqi and the frontier zone in the early 11th century when their chief, Abu al-Makarim Hibatallah, captured a major rebel on behalf of the Fatimid authorities. Abu al-Makarim was accorded the title Kanz al-Dawla by Caliph al-Hakim and his successors inherited the title. The Banu Kanz entered into conflict with the Ayyubids in 1174, during which they were defeated and forced to migrate southward into northern Nubia, where they helped accelerate the expansion of Islam in the mostly Christian region. They eventually assumed control of the Nubian Kingdom of Makuria in the early 14th century, but by the early the 15th century, they were supplanted by the Hawwara tribesmen dispatched by the Mamluks to combat the Banu Kanz. Their modern-day descendants are a Sudanese tribe known as the "Kunuz", who live in the far north of the country.
Abu Muhammad Abdallah ibn Ahmad ibn Salimal-Aswani was a tenth-century Egyptian diplomat and Shia Muslim dāʿī (missionary) in the service of the Fatimids. Following the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, he was dispatched to Nubia by the Fatimid governor Jawhar al-Siqilli in 975 AD (365 AH) or perhaps a little earlier. He left a written record of his mission, the Kitāb Akhbār al-Nūba waʾl-Muḳurra wa ʿAlwa waʾl-Buja waʾl-Nīl. This is the only surviving eyewitness description of medieval Nubia other than the very brief account in Ibn Ḥawqal.
ʿUqba ibn Nāfiʿ ibn ʿAbd al-Qays al-Fihrī al-Qurashī, also simply known as Uqba ibn Nafi, was an Arab general serving the Rashidun Caliphate since the reign of Umar and later the Umayyad Caliphate during the reigns of Mu'awiya I and Yazid I, leading the Muslim conquest of the Maghreb, including present-day Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. He is credited with establishing Umayyad rule in North Africa. Uqba was the nephew of Amr ibn al-As. He is often surnamed al-Fihri in reference to the Banu Fihr, a clan connected to the Quraysh. His descendants would be known as the ʿUqbids or Fihrids.
The Arab conquest of Egypt, led by the army of 'Amr ibn al-'As, took place between 639 and 642 AD and was overseen by the Rashidun Caliphate. It ended the seven-century-long Roman period in Egypt that began in 30 BC, and widely speaking Greco-Roman period that had lasted about a millennium.
Islamic rule in Tripolitania and Cyrenaica began as early as the 7th century. With tenuous Byzantine control over Libya restricted to a few poorly defended coastal strongholds, the Arab invaders who first crossed into Pentapolis, Cyrenaica in September 642 encountered little resistance. Under the command of Amr ibn al-A'as, the armies of Islam conquered Cyrenaica, renaming the Pentapolis, Barqa.
Umar was the second Rashidun Caliph and reigned during 634–644. Umar's caliphate is notable for its vast conquests. Aided by brilliant field commanders, he was able to incorporate present-day Iraq, Iran, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, and parts of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and south western Pakistan into the Caliphate. During his reign, the Byzantines lost more than three fourths of their territory and in Persia, and Umar was the king (ruler) of the Sassanid Empire before it ceased to exist.
The Rashidun Caliphate was the first caliphate to succeed the Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was ruled by the first four successive caliphs of Muhammad after his death in 632 CE. During its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in West Asia and Northeast Africa.
The Rashidun army was the core of the Rashidun Caliphate's armed forces during the early Muslim conquests in the 7th century. The army is reported to have maintained a high level of discipline, strategic prowess and organization, granting them successive victories in their various campaigns.
The second battle of Dongola or siege of Dongola was a military engagement between early Arab forces of the Rashidun Caliphate and the Nubian-Christian forces of the kingdom of Makuria in 652. The battle ended Muslim expansion into Nubia, establishing trade and a historic peace between the Muslim world and a Christian nation. As a result, Makuria was able to grow into a regional power that would dominate Nubia for over the next 500 years.
The Battle of Dongola (1276) was a battle fought between the Mamluk Sultanate under Baibars and the Kingdom of Makuria. The Mamluks gained a decisive victory, capturing the Makurian capital Dongola, forcing the king David of Makuria to flee and placing a puppet on the Makurian throne. After this battle the Kingdom of Makuria went into a period of decline until its collapse in the 15th century
Umayyad rule in North Africa or Umayyad Ifriqiya was a province of the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750) during the historical period in which it ruled the Maghreb region of North Africa, from its conquest of the Maghreb starting in 661 to the Kharijite Berber Revolt ending in 743, which led to the end of its rule in the western and central Maghreb. Following this period, the Umayyads retained their rule over Ifriqiya while the rest of the Maghreb fell to successive Islamic dynasties of Arab, Berber and Persian descent.