The Battle of Mu'tah (Arabic: معركة مؤتة , غزوة مؤتة‎) was fought in 629 (5 Jumada al-awwal 8 AH in the Islamic calendar), near the village of Mu'tah, east of the Jordan River and Karak, between a force of Muslims dispatched by the Islamic prophet Prophet Muhammad and an army of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. In Muslim histories, the battle is usually described as the Muslims' attempt to take retribution against a Ghassanid chief for taking the life of an emissary; it ended in a draw and the safe retreat of both sides. However, some modern historians view the battle as an unsuccessful expedition aimed at conquering the Arabs living to the east of Jordan.

The Treaty of Hudaybiyyah initiated a truce between the Muslim forces in Medina and the Quraishi forces in control of Mecca. Badhan, the Sassanid governor of Yemen, had converted to Islam and many of the southern Arabian tribes also joined the rising power in Medina. Muhammad was therefore free to focus on the Arab tribes in the Bilad al-Sham to the North.

Muslim histories say that the immediate impetus for a military march north was the mistreatment of emissaries. Muhammad is said to have sent emissaries to the nomadic Banu Sulaym and Dhat al Talh tribes of the north (tribes under the protection of the Byzantines). The emissaries were killed.

The expedition sent for revenge was the largest Muslim army raised yet against a non-Meccan confederate force and would be the first to confront the Byzantines. According to F. Buhl, another possible reason "seems to have been that he wished to bring the (Christian or pagan) Arabs living there under his control."

Similar to 0 things you like: