A Historical Research on the Number of Omar ibn Sa’d’s Forces on the Day of Ashura based on Sources (Up to the Fifth Century)

Abstract

Access to statistics is considerably significant in the analysis of historical events, especially those events whose details are not obvious enough. The awareness on the number of Omar ibn Sa’d’s forces on the day of Ashura, is effective in the analysis of the how of Kufis encountering with Imam Hossein (A.S.), since these forces were sent from Kufa. In order to know the number of the forces under the command of Omar ibn Sa’d and to achieve a historical viewpoint, the data was comparatively analyzed based on the historical sources up to the fifth century.Moreover, the analysis of the incident in the historical context has been deeply considered to validate this view point. The findings clarify that the ancient historical records did not address the number of Omar ibn Sa’d's forces on this day; however, Belazori’s report related to the expeditionary forces is more compatible with other sources and to put the other way, half or more than half of the expeditionary forces from Kufa were not willing to encounter with Imam (A.S.) and fled on the way. Accordingly, there is a difference between the number of the troops sent from Kufa and the people present in Karbala event.

Keywords

• quantitative history
• ashura
• karbala
• kufa
• omar bin sa’d army