The Levant Egypt North Africa Anatolia & Constantinople Border conflicts Sicily and Southern Italy Naval warfare Byzantine reconquest Ridda Wars Conquest of Sasanian Persia Conquest of Byzantine Syria Campaigns in Africa Campaigns in Armenia and Anatolia The Battle of Ajnadayn (Arabic: معركة أجنادين) was fought in July or August 634 (Jumada I or II, 13 AH),[1] in a location close to Beit Guvrin in the Roman-era Palestine region; it was the first major pitched battle between the Byzantine (Roman) Empire and the army of the Arab Rashidun Caliphate.
As a possible reaction, commander Khalid ibn al-Walid was ordered to interrupt operations against the Sassanian Empire and reach Syria, which brought him to engage and defeat the Byzantine-allied Ghassanids by April 24, permitting him to enter almost unopposed in Bosra.
Based on the region's topography, the historian N. A. Miednikoff suggested that the battle was fought on the Wadi al-Samt river (Valley of Elah), where lies the twin village of al-Jannaba.
According to the hypothesis advanced by Miednikoff and Michael Jan de Goeje and summarized by Leone Caetani, it was from the dual form (al-Jannabatayn) of the village the historical name of the battle emerged, by conflation with the plural for "army", ajnad.
[2] The Byzantines were led by Heraclius' brother Theodore, as well as by a figure called "Artabun" or "Wardan" in the Muslim sources, evidently a corruption of the Armenian name Vardan.
[13] The Arab columns reunited once more to confront another Byzantine attempt at halting the Muslim invasion at the Battle of Fahl (near Pella in modern Jordan) six months later.