Beja

Overview

Al-Baladhuri describes the Buja as a desert people, owners of camels and livestock. Their land is wasteland; between it and the lands of Islam is a month's journey through barren ground and rough mountains, and it has gold mines. It is the land of the Buja. ¹

They raided the land of Egypt and refused to pay what they owed from the mines. Muhammad al-Qummi fought them in the time of al-Mutawakkil. Their camels were skittish and startled at everything, so al-Qummi hung bells on his horses and their camels bolted. They made peace in the year 241 AH in exchange for a tribute and the bsaq tax. ¹

al-Qummi's War on the Buja Lands

In al-Baladhuri: al-Mutawakkil ordered sending a man called Muhammad ibn Abdallah — known as al-Qummi — to the mine of Egypt as its governor, giving him the Qulzum, the Hijaz road and with it Egypt's hajj command; reaching the mine he carried provisions by ships from the Qulzum to the Buja lands, met a coast called Aydhab where the ships joined him — strengthened by that supply he reached the Buja king's fortress and fought him in small number; the Buja king came out in the masses on armored camels, so al-Qummi took the bells and hung them on the horses — the camels heard their sounds and scattered the Buja through valleys and mountains, and the Buja master was killed. His sister's son succeeded — the original reads 'his brother' — his father one of the Buja kings, and sought truce; al-Mutawakkil refused unless he tread his carpet, so he came to Samarra and peace was made in year 241 on paying the tribute and baqt; he was returned with al-Qummi, the Buja entering truce, paying and not barring Muslims from working the gold mine — that being the condition on their master. In al-Maqrizi's version cited by the editors: al-Mutawakkil gave him the Buja war in 241 and wrote Anbasa ibn Ishaq al-Dabbi, Egypt's amir, to aid him; their land was a month's barren march of rugged mountains; their king was Ali Baba — when the provision ships arrived he fought in earnest, the camels panicked at the bells, the Muslims pursued killing and capturing; Ali Baba asked aman, granted on paying dues, he carried him four years' withheld kharaj; al-Qummi returned to Baghdad with Ali Baba — al-Mutawakkil robed him in brocade and gave Sa'd al-Khadim the Buja and the road to Mecca; Sa'd gave Muhammad al-Qummi that and he returned with Ali Baba still on his religion, carrying a stone idol like a boy he prostrated to; al-Qummi settled at Aswan and died there.

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Sources

al-Qummi's War on the Buja Lands