Majza'a ibn Thawr al-Sadusi

Majza'a ibn Thawr al-Sadusi was one of the brave Muslims at Tustar. He commanded the left wing of Abu Musa al-Ash'ari's army in the battle, and was the officer Abu Musa sent ahead by night into the city, whose men killed the guards and raised the takbir on its wall. ¹

Al-Baladhuri relates that Abu Musa marched on Tustar, then the enemy's stronghold, and wrote to 'Umar asking for reinforcements; 'Umar sent 'Ammar ibn Yasir (may God be pleased with him) with the Kufans, who put Jarir ibn 'Abdallah al-Bajali in the van. On Abu Musa's right wing stood al-Bara' ibn Malik, brother of Anas, on his left wing Majza'a ibn Thawr al-Sadusi, and over the cavalry Anas ibn Malik (may God be pleased with him) ¹. The people of Tustar fought them hard until the Muslims reached the city's gate, where al-Bara' ibn Malik battled them at the gate until he was martyred, and al-Hurmuzan entered the town ¹. Abu Musa then assigned forty men to Majza'a ibn Thawr and followed them with two hundred more by night, a man under safe conduct guiding them; he brought them into the city, they killed the guards and raised the takbir on the wall, and when al-Hurmuzan heard it he fled to his keep where his treasury lay ².

Al-Basha in Suwar Min Hayat al-Sahaba makes Majza'a ibn Thawr al-Sadusi — chief and obeyed leader of Banu Bakr — a valiant horseman of God's soldiers after al-Qadisiyya, and tells that Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him) charged his governor over Kufa, Abu Musa al-Ash'ari, to take his army to al-Ahwaz to pursue Hormuzan, finish him off and liberate Tustar, and that Majza'a ibn Thawr al-Sadusi accompanied him. ^{3 4} Al-Basha describes Tustar as among the most beautiful and most strongly fortified of Persian cities, built on a rise shaped like a horse and watered by the Dijla river, ringed by the greatest wall ever built on earth's back with a trench beyond it no one could cross; the Muslim armies camped around its trench for eighteen months unable to pass it, and fought eighty battles with the Persian forces meanwhile, every one beginning with single combat between the two sides' knights. ^{4 5} In those combats Majza'a performed feats that stunned minds; he managed to kill a hundred champions of the enemy knights in single combat, and his name came to strike terror into Persian ranks and stir pride in Muslim breasts. ⁵ Al-Basha then tells that a man secured the Muslims' aman by a message in an arrow and showed them a hidden way into the city; Abu Musa summoned him and chose Majza'a ibn Thawr to guide the guide through the underground tunnel, putting him into a passage that widened now and narrowed now until swimming was needed, and brought him to the opening into the city and showed him Hormuzan in his fortress; Majza'a meant to shoot him through the throat, but remembered Abu Musa's charge not to act on his own, reined in that desire and returned before dawn. ^{6 7 8} Abu Musa readied three hundred of his bravest, toughest and best swimmers and put Majza'a in command; they went on the last third of the night's first watch through the tunnel — widening, narrowing — and it swallowed two hundred and twenty of his men and left him eighty; when their feet touched the city's ground they drew their swords, fell on the fortress guards and ran them through, then leapt to the gates and opened them crying "God is greatest." ^{8 9} While the battle raged Majza'a caught sight of Hormuzan in its midst, made for him and crossed swords with him; when the two closed in each struck the other a decisive blow — Majza'a's sword notched and Hormuzan's sword found its mark — and the valiant champion fell slain; the Muslim soldiers pressed on until Hormuzan fell into their hands a captive. ^{9 10} Al-Basha adds that the bearers of good news drove Hormuzan to the city with his jewel-set crown on his head and his gold-embroidered cloak on his shoulders to show the caliph, and that they bore with them warm condolences for Majza'a ibn Thawr. ¹⁰