The Waqisa Disaster and the Khafaja Interception of the Pilgrims

In Safar 403 AH the Banu Khafaja intercepted the Iraqi pilgrim caravan at Waqisa and dried up the wells, and thousands of pilgrims died of thirst in one of the harshest disasters on the pilgrimage road. ¹

Abu Fulayta ibn al-Qawi, with six hundred men of Banu Khafaja, got ahead of the pilgrims to Waqisa. They drained the water from the cisterns of al-Barmaki and al-Rayyan and threw colocynth into the wells to render them useless. When the pilgrims reached al-ʿAqaba, he besieged them and demanded fifty thousand dinars. As their thirst grew severe, he attacked and seized the money and the loads. It was said that about fifteen thousand people died, and their amir, Abu al-Harith al-ʿAlawi, escaped on foot with a small group. ¹

The vizier Fakhr al-Mulk wrote to the amir ʿAli ibn Mazyad al-Asadi ordering him to go out in pursuit. He caught up with them in the desert near Basra, struck them, captured Abu Fulayta and fourteen men from the notables of Khafaja, recovered as much of the money as he could, and brought the captives to Baghdad. ²