Ahmad al-Kufi

[pp. 94-95]

AḤMAD AL-KŪFĪ

(d. 926 A.D.)

Aḥmad al-A’tham al-Kūfī. An unknown author of a history of the early Caliphs written from a shiite point of view.

EI (s.v.)

K. al-futūhāt (lost?).

Persian transl.: London, Brit.Mus., Cat. of Pers. MS I, 150.

Engl, transl.: W. Ouseley, The Invasion of Nubia, Orient. Collection I, 333.

Exc.: Quatremère, Mem. II, p. 39

T.; Quatremère P:1

‘Amrū b. al-As was in Egypt when he received a letter from Omar enjoining him to march against Nubia and conquer it as well as the country of the Berbers, Barqa, Tripoli, the Maghreb and its dependencies, Tanja Afrahenja<ref>Sic! in Quatremère (1.c;). It seems a misreading for Ifriqiya.</ref> to Sūs-al-aqsā. At that time, 'Amrū had just collected the tribute which he had imposed on the town of Alexandria, amounting to ten thousand dinars or more, and was about to forward this amount to the Caliph. As [p. 95] he received the order to leave for Nubia, he distributed all that money to his soldiers. Then after he had announced his expedition and made the necessary preparations, he set out for Nubia at the head of 20,000 men. When he arrived there, he let his soldiers free so that they scattered in all directions killing and plundering whatever they found. When the Nubians realized the destruction made in their own country, they gathered together up to one hundred thousand men and moved to attack the Moslems so bravely that the Moslems had never suffered a loss like the one they had in Nubia. So many heads were cut off in one battle, so many hands were chopped, so many eyes smitten by arrows and bodies lying on the ground that no one could count.

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