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Talk:First battle of Dongola

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My recent edits...

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hi, i have made some edits in the article making it historically more accurate and fixing its tone in accordance with wikipedia standards.

  • First of all i have removed "20,000 Muslims cavalry" !
Muslim army that conquered Egypt was 12,000 strong with about 5,000 cavalry, So from where 20,000 cavalry came from ? the size of the raiding column was most probably around 2,500-3,000.
  • There was no pitch battle fought in nubia, so i have mentioned in the introduction that the battle refers to series of "skirmishes".


  • I have included 250 wounded, as mentioned by al-buladuri instead of 150 wounded, mentioned previously in the article.
  • I have wrote about the tactics of Nubians, that halted Muslim's advance.
  • I have added info regarding the status of the event, i.e it is seen by most of the historians as a preemptive strike, a conventional Rashidun tactics to create buffer zones. (as did in north africa, Syria and Iran).
  • I have added some info regarding the fact that the whole sace invasion would have required approval of Caliph Umar, who would have never allowed Amr to expand his territory when his rule in egypt was not consolidated, as we latter see that when Amr conquered north africa in 643, Caliph umar ordered him to pull back only to consolidate his rule in egypt.


الله أكبرMohammad Adil 13:53, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • I feel like an idiot for posing all those questions on your talk page now, lol.
    • I see your point for the 20,000 cav. Still, it is sourced so I'm sticking with it until we find something else. Besides, wouldn't it be possible to raise more cavalry troops in Misr from the settled population or mercenaries?
    • You seem to be spot on about Nubian tactics. The book I'm using states as much. But we are still focusing on this single battle. I think its okay to include that info in the context of the battle but not as part of a running campaign. i know we may not agree on this. It is simply an opinion, no more valid than your own which you seem to have spent a lot of time researching.

On second thought

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After doing a bit of reading on what constitutes a battle and what constitutes a skirmish, I'm beginning to lean toward your train of thought. I've come to these conclusions. Tell me what u think...

  • This was a battle of encounter (since niether side had time to prepare for the fight)
  • This was not a pitched battle (since there is no proof that either side decided where to fight)
  • This cannot be termed a skirmish or series of skirmishes (since I don't see any single definition for such in the realm of battles). A skirmish seems to be more of a tactic than a type of battle.

I will make some changes to the wording of the article.Scott Free (talk) 22:24, 23 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


  • hi, well i agree with your oft quoted points. And i appreciate the term "meeting engagement", perhaps its the best term that we could use. What i believe is that the article need more stress on the "battle stuff" then the narrations regarding the battle. Let me make it more clear, the article in its current version is not a "militarty history" article, as it lacks the basics. It didn't mentions about the tactics and strategies used by both sides moreover the "reason" of Muslim incursion on nubia has not been highlighted (i mentioned it but you may have deleted it !).


  • None of the Muslim source mentioned that the army reached as far as dongola, but rather they says that they were forced to pull back before reaching dongola. Yes in second invasion of nubia they how ever managed to reach dongola and besieged it. But in first invasion, they were not even near to dongola, perhaps after border engagements they had decided to retreat.


  • They 20,000 cavalry seems a myth ! From where in this world caliphate could manage to muster up 20,000 cavalry only to " invade a poor land where there was nothing to loot, or worth fighting ? "

Check this Battle of Yarmouk, it was the titanic struggle between the roman and muslim empires in 636 and here muslims from all over the empire could only concentrate 10,000 cavalry in addition to 30,000 infantry, and thats according to primary sources, accordging to modern historians, (who are critical to approach of early sources in their estimations of strength of armies) the muslim army in yarmouk ( the biggest battle every fought by any Muslim Caliphate ) could not have exceeded 25,000 (cavalry + infantry) because the logistical capabilities of the time were not so as to support such a large armies. After all you have to feed them and they need water to drink ! Its an understood fact of military history that before 14th century concentration of army more then 100,000 was impossible, not becasue they lack man power, but because of logistical problems. In the light of above debate, i would completely discard tyhe possibility of 20,000 cavalry in nubian invasion. More over you can check my article

  • Muslim conquest of Syria, where total of 25,000 muslim army invaded syria from 5 different routes.
  • Muslim conquest of Egypt, it is well sources and referenced and clearly states muslim army that conquered egypt was not more then 12,000 and this is agreed by the modern military historians. ( Amr, the commander who captured egypt sent the expedition to nubia, he had 12,000 army at his disposal, so from where did he sent that 20,000 army ?

moreover, if we take a look on the larger picture of the era, in 642 Muslim conquest of Persia begun, and Caliph Umar was in no mode to pay attention in africa which he already had rated as "land of mischief and rebillions" he even was opposing invasion of egypt !


  • I am of the view that the invasion of Nubia was not a whole scale invasion, A.I.Akram's book muslim conquest of egypt and north africa also mentions this fact. You can see the pattern of muslim invasions and the aftermaths. For example when Muslims captured Levant they made preemptive raids in Anatolia, their purpose was not to capture anatolia but was to raid and plunder the borders of Levant in order to create, as Kaegi, Walter Emil in his book Heraclius: Emperor of Byzantium says "to create a buffer zone or no man land to protect their frontiers"

A close study on military doctrine rashidun caliphate will illustrate the issue and will make the matter simple. When muslims captured Levant, they raided into anatolia and armenia. When they conquered Sassanid Persian empire, they raided the adjoining areas for example when they captured afghanistan they raided in to Transoxiana, and it was in no sense a whole scale invasion but just an other raid in words of early muslim historians as to "stuck terror" in the mind of the neighboring land. In modern term more or less it referes to preemptive attack. There are various example of this conventional practice of Muslim armies of raiding neighbouring territories, like after capturing Persian province of Sistan they raided Pakistan in 644 before capturing a part of it 10 years later in 654. Just see what they did after capturing egypt, Amr send an expedition of Nubia ( south of egypt) and to Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Fezzan in north africa, these were not perminent conquest but rather raids to secure a buffer zone, in 643 they abandon captured territories in north africa on the orders of Caliph Umar who ordered them to consolidate their grip over egypt. A study of Caliph Umar's lifestyle and military legacy will help u in understanding his style of conquest which was totally different from alexander and ceaser who believe in relentless conquest, in contrast Umar was keen in consolidating his political authority over the conquered land first, before moving ahead, a fact that made the conquest of his reign perminent conquest and as pointed out by Michael H. Hart in his book "The 100" ( the 100 most influential figures), that the land conquered by alexander and ceaser were lost as they died but the land conquered by Umar are still under muslim's control, and this is becasue of his political genius and non-offensive policies.


  • Any ways i just realized that the paragraph went too long, so you read it, just try to go in the depth of the matter, a comparative study will help you in figuring out the facts from myths. When i was new in the field of military history, even i use to support the large mythical sizes of armies like 250,000 persian army for Battle of Qadisiyyah etc etc, but just got matured after i had a long discussion at Talk:Battle of Yarmouk regarding the "size of army methodology", it proved very productive and i read some great book on the topic just to realize that facts were otherwise. Best regards and take care, i will be waiting for your comments.


الله أكبرMohammad Adil 17:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]


      • Yeah the 20,000 is probably a myth (in my opinion), but by wikistandards we gotta go with what is sourced until we have something better. The reason the article lacks certan battle stuff is that there is not a lot of research about the event. It took me a while to dig up the sources I found. That doesn't mean this isn't a miltary article. It just needs some expansion. The only thing we know about the tactics of this engagement are the Makurian's use of archery and cavalry (which is in the article). I wish we knew more about how the Caliphate fought. It seems strange to me to invade an area (with the definate intent of conquering it, per Ashraif) with only cavalry. However Uqba appears to have done it elsewhere in Africa. How do you hold a conquered land with just cavalry? It's the medieval equivalent of trying to win a war with just airpower. Also, lets remember that the Egyptians didn't know Nubia was a poor land. And as far as it even being a poor land, we gotta take that with a grain of salt. Nubia has thrived since Pharaohnic times on trade. The land had gold and good soil (at least along the nile basins). And we all know that there was the potential for slaves to be taken from the area, so I'm not buying the whole "we stopped because the land wasn't worth conquering" jive. I think the commander was just making excuses. Also, we are pretty confident the invading force made it pretty close to Dongola (Damqula in Arab sources) in the first engagement. All of my sources are clear that they got that far before being beaten back.

Anwho, thanks for your input and improvements to the article. I think it is already way better now than it was when I started it. Do you have any info on the Second Battle of Dongola. I'm thinking of renaming the article "Siege of Dongola", but I see no literary precedent for naming it as such. All I've run across in First Battle of Dongola and Second Battle of Dongola. CHEERSScott Free (talk) 20:46, 24 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

this is mess

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This is the second battle of Dongla and not the first. The first was that Amr bin Aas sent his leader Uqba bin Nafeh with only 5,000 horsemen, but he was defeated and only 250 dead with thousands of wounded thanks to the skill of Nubians in archery, then a second battle of Dongla led by Ibn Abi Sarh where he crawled With 20,000 knights and many catapults, he was not defeated, and an agreement was signed between two sides Aah799 (talk) 20:44, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The Arabs always send a small force to plunder, usually between 1,000 and 6,000 soldiers, while the armies of conquest consist of 20,000 to 40,000, who write this mess trying to make minor clashes a large battle. Aah799 (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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