The Battle of Muktah

Muktah is an area near the boundary of Syria that was under the Roman rule. The Christians that lived there had killed a few Arabs who had converted to Islam.

Prophet Muhammad had sent a mubaligh or a Muslim preacher, but he was killed by the Governor who was of Ghassan descent.

And so the Prophet prepared an army of 3000 men led by Zaid bin Harsah. The Romans had a huge army of 200,000 men. For this battle, the Prophet had chosen two more warriors to replace Zaid if he was killed. The two were Jaafar bin Abu Talib and Abdullah bin Ruahah. When Zaid was killed Jaafar took his place. Jaafar was also killed and so Abdullah bin Ruahah replaced him.

Eventually Abdullah was killed too as predicted by Prophet Muhammad. Khalid bin Walid then took command and was forced to retreat the army to avoid any more disasters.