التاريخ اليميني 19.26

19.26

The infidel stood fast in his position, inclined to delay, guarding himself by holding off and evasion, waiting for the rabble of armies and riffraff of tribes and peoples behind him. But the Sultan hurried him out of what he had resolved on—putting delay first and deferring the encounter—and stretched out against him the hands of God's friends, who gave them their fill of war and plunder, of slashing and shooting, of cutting and piercing, of scraping and destroying. So he was forced to defend himself and to roast in the fire of combat. Then the horses drew up in ranks, the drums beat, the elephants advanced, and each side came at the other to assail it. Arrows flew at the targets as boys in the late afternoon pelt one another with pellets; the blades of the swords flashed as the lightning of the clouds flashes in the depths of darkness; and springs of blood gushed forth as the rain-bearing stars pour down their showers. God's friends pressed in numbers upon the masses of the fleeing, driving them on relentlessly and urging them into prancing and bounding flight. Midday had not come before the Muslims had exacted their due from God's enemies, the polytheists. They gave the swords free rein over some five thousand men, laid them out on the bare ground, and fed them to the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. On the field of battle fifteen elephants were thrown down, their hamstrings pierced by the points of arrows and their trunks cut through by the swords of the brave. God's enemy Jaypāl was surrounded, together with his sons, his grandsons, his nephews, and the men of renown among his clan and kin, and they were driven with the halters of compulsion and captivity to the Sultan's station, as criminals are driven to the fire—faces covered with the dust of unbelief and overspread with the gloom of abandonment—some with their arms bound by force behind their backs, some dragged along on their cheeks, some struck on the jugular in cold blood. From Jaypāl's neck was loosed a necklace strung and inlaid with unique pearls, brilliant jewels and red rubies, valued at two hundred thousand dinars, and twice as much was taken from the necks of those of his kin who were shared out between killing and captivity, and who were fed to the jaws of hyena and vulture. God bestowed upon His friends booty beyond the bounds of counting and exceeding every effort at reckoning and enumeration, and He gave them as spoils five hundred thousand head of the finest male and female slaves. The Sultan returned with the friends of God who were with him to the camp, laden with spoils, abundant, victorious, triumphant, giving thanks to God, Lord of the worlds.