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Murder Holes, Machicolations, and Other Medieval Warfare Facts

Khalid Elhassan March 6, 2020 34 min

Pike and shot - Pike and Shot : Campaigns — A pike and short formation, with pikemen protecting those wielding firearms while they reloaded. Pintrest

15. Her Brother’s Keeper

When Khawla bint al Azwar’s brother converted to the then-new religion of Islam, she followed suit and adopted the new faith. She first gained note as a warrior in 634, during the Arab siege of Damascus, when her brother was wounded and taken prisoner by the city’s Byzantine defenders.

Khawla donned armor and arms, and covering her face with a shawl to hide her gender, charged the Byzantine rearguard alone. She fought until reinforcements arrived to rescue her brother from captivity. At the Battle of Ajnadayn later that year, her brother was again taken prisoner, and Khawla again rushed to his rescue, covering her face and charging in alone until reinforcements arrived.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.