Khalid ibn al-Walid
Itineraries and the desert march

The starting point of Khalid's general march to Syria was al-Hira, according to most of the traditional accounts, with the exception of al-Baladhuri, who places it at Ayn al-Tamr. The segment of the general march called the 'desert march' by the sources occurred at an unclear stage after the al-Hira departure. This phase entailed Khalid and his men—numbering between 500 and 800 strong —marching from a well called Quraqir across a vast stretch of waterless desert for six days and five nights until reaching a source of water at a place called Suwa. As his men did not possess sufficient waterskins to traverse this distance with their horses and camels, Khalid had some twenty of his camels increase their typical water intake and sealed their mouths to prevent the camels from eating and consequently spoiling the water in their stomachs; each day of the march, he had a number of the camels slaughtered so his men could drink the water stored in the camels' stomachs. The utilization of the camels as water storage and the locating of the water source at Suwa were the result of advice given to Khalid by his guide, Rafi ibn Amr of the Tayy.

Excluding the above-mentioned operations in Dumat al-Jandal and the upper Euphrates valley, the traditional accounts agree on only two events of Khalid's route to Syria after the departure from al-Hira: the desert march between Quraqir and Suwa, and a subsequent raid against the Bahra tribe at or near Suwa and operations which resulted in the submission of Palmyra; otherwise, they diverge in tracing Khalid's itinerary. Based on these accounts, Donner summarizes three possible routes taken by Khalid to the vicinity of Damascus: two via Palmyra from the north and the one via Dumat al-Jandal from the south. Kennedy notes the sources are "equally certain" in their advocacy of their respective itineraries and there is "simply no knowing which version is correct".

In the first Palmyra–Damascus itinerary, Khalid marches upwards along the Euphrates—passing through places he had previously reduced—to Jabal al-Bishri and from there successively moves southwestwards through Palmyra, al-Qaryatayn and Huwwarin before reaching the Damascus area. In this route the only span where a desert march could have occurred is between Jabal al-Bishri and Palmyra, though the area between the two places is considerably less than a six-day march and contains a number of water sources. The second Palmyra–Damascus itinerary is a relatively direct route between al-Hira and Palmyra via Ayn al-Tamr. The stretch of desert between Ayn al-Tamr and Palmyra is long enough to corroborate a six-day march and contains scarce watering points, though there are no placenames that can be interpreted as Quraqir or Suwa. In the Dumat al-Jandal–Damascus route, such placenames exist, namely the sites of Qulban Qurajir, associated with 'Quraqir', along the eastern edge of Wadi Sirhan, and Sab Biyar, which is identified with Suwa 150 kilometers (93 mi) east of Damascus. The span between the two sites is arid and corresponds with the six-day march narrative.

The desert march is the most celebrated episode of Khalid's expedition and medieval Futuh ('Islamic conquests') literature in general. Kennedy writes that the desert march "has been enshrined in history and legend. Arab sources marvelled at his endurance; modern scholars have seen him as a master of strategy." He asserts it is "certain" Khalid embarked on the march, "a memorable feat of military endurance", and "his arrival in Syria was an important ingredient of the success of Muslim arms there". The historian Moshe Gil calls the march "a feat which has no parallel" and a testament to "Khalid's qualities as an outstanding commander".

The historian Ryan J. Lynch deems Khalid's desert march to be a literary construct by the authors of the Islamic tradition to form a narrative linking the Muslim conquests of Iraq and Syria and presenting the conquests as "a well-calculated, singular affair" in line with the authors' alleged polemical motives. Lynch holds that the story of the march, which "would have excited and entertained" Muslim audiences, was created out of "fragments of social memory" by inhabitants who attributed the conquests of their towns or areas to Khalid as a means "to earn a certain degree of prestige through association" with the "famous general".
oulipo:avoid_letter[t]