The battle was the culmination of several weeks of fighting between the Zanj rebels and local defenders in the villages and canals of southern Iraq. A large army of volunteers from the city of Basra that had set out to quell the Zanj was ambushed and defeated by the insurgents. Almost all of the Basran soldiers, together with a number of civilians that had accompanied them, were killed during the fighting. The battle was a major victory for the Zanj, and it forced the Abbasid government to take a more direct role in the campaign against the rebels.