Yusuf Circle Sheffield

Al-Mugheera Ibn Shu’ba رضي الله عنه Session 36 We observe that the tactics employed by the Muslims were highly flexible, changing as the situation demanded. On the 1st day of battle they fought the elephants first by pelting them with arrows and then cutting off their saddles which made the animals flee. (Secondly) Whilst waiting for reinforcements from Ash-Shaam, the leaders of those reinforcements let their brigades arrive in batches to make the enemy believe the size of the new army to be much larger than it really was. Another (ie third) innovative technique employed was that the Muslims dressed their camels in cloaks and attached bells to them this made them appear as elephants to the enemy's horses which duly fled in fright. (Fourthly) On the 3rd day however they changed their tactics, by attacking the largest of their elephants. They attacked it in a platoon consisting of infantry and cavalry both. Finally they pierced its eyes and cut its trunk making it flee back along with the other elephan