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A fact from Day of Thirst appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 9 February 2012 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
Did you know... that the Umayyad defeat in the "Day of Thirst" led to the almost complete loss of Muslim control over Transoxiana over a period of fifteen years?
Okay, this is probably an extremely stupid question ("There are no stupid questions, just stupid people"), but... why is it called "Day of Thirst"? Currently the article fails to explain... (or I'm missing the obvious.) -- Syzygy (talk) 08:01, 9 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is me rather than you who is at fault here, I neglected to mention the obvious ;). The Arab army suffered from thirst throughout the battle, and this is why the battle became known under this name. Al-Tabari even mentions an exhausted soldier snatching away Muslim ibn Sa'id's own water-cup to drink after the battle was over. Constantine ✍ 15:30, 21 November 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Hello and thanks for taking the time to review! The quote marks seemed necessary to me as it is not immediately apparent what the "Day of Thirst" could be about, as it is not a descriptive name (Battle of X, War of Y), but rather a literary one. I have no problem with removing them, however, I will defer to your judgment on this. On linking "conquered", IMO it would be inaccurate to link this with the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana article, because the actual conquest began with some initial attempts in the 670s, and only ended in the 750s. The "conquest" referred to here is that under Qutayba b. Muslim, who is linked. I would add the link using {{main}}, but the article is currently scarcely of any help to a reader (I hope to rectify that soon). On linking the Mudaris, Wadi al-Subuh, and Baruqa, the first and third have been done, the second is a hapax and not identifiable, let alone article-worthy. The "East" referred to the Eastern Islamic world, i.e. in this timeframe, Khurasan, so I changed it to the latter. The other two fixes have been implemented. Cheers, Constantine ✍ 12:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]