longer be of any use to him. I therefore implored al-Mustansir, but he refused. So we all set out (1) for the enemy; when we drew near, he instructed me to draft two letters from them both to the two kings Muannaq and Faranda, and another letter from Ibn ʿIyāḍ to his son-in-law Abū Muḥammad, bidding him come with the army of Valencia.

Ibn ʿIyāḍ said to him, “Our quarry is close at hand, and war is deception.” Al-Mustansir, however, would not yield and replied, “Once my letter reaches them, they will return the spoils.” His letter accomplished nothing.

Al-Yasaʿ continues: We then engaged the Romans. They had hidden two thousand horsemen in ambush while four thousand showed themselves, and we numbered about two thousand. Battle was joined: some seven hundred men of Valencia were killed, and about one thousand Romans. The men of Murcia fled from Ibn ʿIyāḍ, and Ibn Hūd fled as well. Ibn ʿIyāḍ stood firm with roughly one hundred horsemen and routed the Romans, but their concealed force emerged, and after fierce fighting we were broken. The emir Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Mardanish, Ibn ʿIyāḍ’s son-in-law, was martyred, as was Aḥmad ibn Mardanish. At that point Ibn ʿIyāḍ slashed through the Romans, crossed the River Júcar, and reached the town of Jinjāla. The shattered remnant rejoined him, while Ibn Hūd was nowhere to be found. We entered Murcia, and its people rejoiced at the safety of the warrior-king ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿIyāḍ. This took place in the year thirty-something and five hundred AH.

20 – al-ʿUthmānī, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā

The eminent scholar and jurisconsult, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-ʿUthmānī, al-Maqdisī, a Shāfiʿī Ashʿarī resident of Baghdad, was a descendant of Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Dībāj (2).