Battle of Mu'tah 629
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Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.
Key facts
| Year | 629 | Wikidata P585 (point in time) |
|---|---|---|
| Era | Medieval (500–1499) | derived from year |
| Location | Jordan | Natural Earth (modern borders) |
| Continent | Asia | Natural Earth |
| War / conflict | Arab–Byzantine wars | Wikidata P361 |
| Participants | Byzantine Empire, Ghassanids, first Islamic state | Wikidata P710 |
| Coordinates | 31.0333, 35.6972 | Wikidata P625 |
About the battle
The Battle of Mu'tah (Arabic: مَعْرَكَة مُؤْتَة, romanized: Maʿrakat Muʿtah, or Arabic: غَزْوَة مُؤْتَة Ghazwat Muʿtah) took place in September 629 (1 Jumada al-Awwal 8 AH), between the forces of Muhammad and the army of the Byzantine Empire and their Ghassanid vassals. It took place in the village of Mu'tah in Palaestina Salutaris at the east of the Jordan River and modern-day Karak.
In Islamic historical sources, the battle is usually described as the Muslims' attempt to take retribution against a Ghassanid chief for taking the life of an emissary. According to Byzantine sources, the Muslims planned to launch their attack on a feast day. The local Byzantine exarch learned of their plans and collected the garrisons of the fortresses. Seeing the great number of the enemy forces, the Muslims withdrew to the south where the fighting started at the village of Mu'tah and they were either routed or retired without exacting a penalty on the Ghassanid chief. According to Muslim sources, after three of their leaders were killed, the command was given to Khalid ibn al-Walid and he succeeded in saving the rest of the force.
Three years later the Muslims would return to defeat the Byzantine forces in the Expedition of Usama bin Zayd.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Battle of Mu'tah (revision 1371972982), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; formatting and citations removed. No text added.
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