A lady saw a dream, in which a man descended from the sky with a vessel from which her husband, Abu Ubaid, his son Jabar and other family members drank. She informed Abu Ubaid and he interpreted it as martyrdom.

And true to this dream, they were martyred likewise in the Battle of Bridge.

Abu Ubaid was sent as a commander of the Iraq campaign by the “leader of the Believers-Umar ibn Al-Khattab (May Allah have mercy on him)”. He fought successive battles and Allah The Almighty granted the Muslims victory.

Our hero was extremely noble and generous. Once some of the local governors had come forward to offer truce and armistice and some of them presented their choicest cuisines to Abu Ubaid saying “This is something by which we wish to honour and cool your heart”. He replied “did you honour my soldiers and cool their heart likewise?” They said “it is not easy but we will do it nevertheless .” To which he replied “then we do not desire anything which is not available to the troops. Did I not tell you that I will not partake except from that which is also available to those with me who attacked you?” The delegates finally said “Now no one is left except that he was provided to his fill his camp of this cuisine or better than this”. Upon hearing this Abu Ubaid accepted their gift and ate from it. He sent for his guests who used to eat with him and invited him to share the meal with him. However, his guests already had their share from the Persian cuisine. They did not know whether the Persians had presented Abu Ubaid and thought that they were being called to the same coarse meal that they used to eat with him. They were disinclined to leave the exotic and exquisite cuisine for the simple fare that were the feature of Abu Ubaid diet , so they sent back the reply, “Tell the commander we do not wish anything besides what the farmers have presented us with.” Abu Ubaid replied “Our menu today is a variety of non-Arab cuisines. Come and compare this to what you have been presented with.”

This is how this humble and noble the commander was.

Our hero was martyred in the “Battle of Bridge”. It was a humongous battle because the Muslim were in a very restricted terrain with a narrow exit. A fierce and gory battle ensued, the likes of which had not been known. The Muslims were about ten thousand men, and the Persians had brought with themselves a contingent of numerous elephants which had small bells tied to them to scare the enemy’s horses. Whenever the Muslim cavalry tried to attack, their horses would flee back due to the fright they got from the elephants and the eerie sound of the bells. Only a handful of expert horsemen were able rein in their horses to maintain their positions .The Muslims were not able to make their cavalry advance towards the elephant squadron, while the Persians kept spraying them with arrows that resulted in a number of causalities.

Seeing this, the commander and his troops dismounted their steeds and forayed forward with swords in hands. It was an extremely difficult situation and Abu Ubaid called out to them to concentrate on the elephants and cut their saddle girths to make the troops on top of them fall to the ground and leading by example, he himself began with the white elephant and hung on to its girth and cut it, and the saddle along with the occupants came crashing to the ground. In the attempt to get rid of the elephant, which was attacking the Muslims, he attacked its trunk with sword. However, the elephant pushed Abu Ubaid to the ground and trampled on him with its hind legs. His brother who took the banner attacked the ferocious animal, but he too was trampled to death and met the same demise. The banner was successively passed on to men and they all were killed until Al-Muthanna became the commander.

And here we see the dream come true. These were our brave heroes and warriors, who sacrificed their life in the way of Allah, their utmost concern being to please Allah and indeed what could be better than this!

Bint Hasan

Writer, AAT