Al-'Uḏayb

Al-Udayb, properly al-ʿUdhayb, was a waystation on the Darb Zubaydah, the pilgrimage road from Kufa to Mecca, where the settled lands of Iraq gave way to the Arabian desert and every stop and well mattered to travellers. It is best known from the accounts of the battle of al-Qadisiyyah, fought around 637, in which the Arab Muslims defeated the army of the Sasanian Empire.

Its fortress stood on the desert fringe: three nested square defences, the innermost about thirty metres across with round corner towers, ringed by thick earthen ramparts. A long earthen wall tied it to the settlement of al-Qadisiyyah, and an artificial channel brought water to within a few hundred metres of the gate. The fort resembles other Sasanian frontier works, and its pottery belongs to the Sasanian and early Islamic periods.