The Storming of Daybul

al-Baladhuri relates in "Futuh al-Buldan" that Muhammad ibn al-Qasim came to Daybul on a Friday, dug a trench, set up a catapult called al-Arusa, and then took it by force. ¹

• Ships came to him carrying men, weapons and tools.
• The letters of al-Hajjaj came back to him, and his letters came back to al-Hajjaj with news of the same state, every three days.
• In Daybul there was a great idol with a tall mast and a red banner. al-Hajjaj ordered him to set up the Arusa and throw at the mast, and it was broken. ¹

Muhammad advanced against them when they came out to him, and routed them. Then ladders were set up and men climbed, and the first of them was a man of Murad from the people of Kufa. Muhammad remained killing those inside it for three days, and the agent of Dahir fled from it. He laid out the Muslims' quarters in it, built a mosque and settled four thousand there. ¹

al-Baladhuri relates on the authority of Mansur ibn Hatim al-Nahwi that he saw the mast broken. And that Anbasa ibn Ishaq al-Dabbi, governor of Sind in the caliphate of al-Mu'tasim, demolished the top of the minaret and made a prison in it. ¹

The report gives no date for the conquest, and it needs an additional source.