AG 945, indiction VII: On Friday, 4 February, [i.e., 634 CE / Dhul Qa'dah 12 AH] at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Maḥmet [Syr.tayyāyē d-MḤMT] in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind thepatrician Jordan (Syr.BRYRDN), whom the Arabs killed. Some 40,000 [according to the original edition, but the more recent English translation reads "4000" without comment] poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews andSamaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.
AG 947, indiction IX: The Arabs invaded the whole of Syria and went down to Persia and conquered it; the Arabs climbed mountain ofMardin and killed many monks there in [the monasteries of] Qedar and Bnata (Benōthō).[8] There died the blessed man Simon, doorkeeper of Qedar, brother of Thomas the priest.[9][10]
The battle took place following a series of Arab raids aroundGaza. The Byzantine commander (dux andcandidatus) Sergius assembled a small detachment of soldiers (due to a shortage of troops), and led that mounted army from his base atCaesarea some 125 kilometers south to the vicinity of Gaza. From there he proceeded against an Arab force that was numerically superior[11] and commanded by'Amr ibn al-'As.[12][13] The opposing forces met at the village of Dathin on February 4, not far from Gaza.[1][14] The Byzantines were defeated and thecandidatus Sergius himself was killed, together with 300 of his soldiers.[15][16] The battle also claimed the lives of 4,000 civilians (40,000 according to the original edition).
^Palmer, Andrew (1993), with contributions from S. Brock and R. G. Hoyland.The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles Including Two Seventh-Century Syriac Apocalyptic Texts, pp. 18–19
^Hoyland, Robert G. (1997).Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam, pp. 119, 120: "On Friday, 4 February, at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Mụhmet (Muhammad) in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician Yarden, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region."
^Al-Tabari, p. 108, and al-Baladhuri, pp. 167-68, do not name the Byzantine commander, referring to him only by the general rank ofpatrician (baṭrīq). Theophanes, p. 37, names Sergius, but does not specify the location of the battle and dates it to 632-633 AD.
Al-Baladhuri, Ahmad ibn Jabir.The Origins of the Islamic State, Part I. Trans. Philip Khuri Hitti. New York: Columbia University, 1916.
"Extract from a Chronicle Composed about AD 640."The Seventh Century in the West-Syrian Chronicles. Trans. Andrew Palmer. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1993.ISBN0-85323-238-5
Le Strange, Guy (1890).Palestine Under the Moslem: A Description of Syria and the Holy Land, From A.D. 650 to 1500. London: A. P. Watt.
Al-Tabari, Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir.The History of al-Tabari, Volume XI: The Challenge to the Empires. Trans. Khalid Yahya Blankinship. Ed. Ehsan Yar-Shater. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993.ISBN0-7914-0851-5
