—Muḥammad ibn Saʿd ibn Muḥammad, the lord of eastern al-Andalus.
Al-Yasaʿ ibn Ḥazm relates: “Among the most remarkable exploits that have been reliably transmitted to me about his campaigns is the following. One day he raided the enemy and seized abundant booty. More than one thousand Roman horsemen gathered against him, while his own force numbered only three hundred cavalry. He asked them, ‘What do you think?’
They replied (1): ‘We should distract them by abandoning the spoils.’
He said, ‘Did not the One who spoke declare, “If there are twenty steadfast among you, they will overcome two hundred” (Q 8:65)?’
Ibn Murīn answered, ‘Leader, it is Allah who said that.’
He retorted, ‘Allah says this, and you would still shrink from meeting them?’
They held their ground and routed the Romans.
Another curious incident: the Roman king Ibn Rudhmīr came down upon the land and his troops laid waste to the crops. He (Ibn Mardanīsh) sent word to him: ‘A man of your standing should not condone devastation. You must withdraw, or else in a single day I will ruin in your country what you could not ruin in a whole week.’ The accursed ruler ordered his men to desist and, impressed by his reputation among them, sent to request an audience with him.
Ibn Murīn continues: ‘We went with the leader, brought him forward, and the king honoured him, seating him at his side. The king kept scrutinising him and saying in his own tongue, “Your name is mighty, yet your appearance falls short of it; you are no knight in person.” He was short in stature, and the king only wished to jest with him.
Likewise, the Commander of the Muslims ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf had dispatched him; so he went, met with the king, and appointed his son Saʿd to act in his stead until he returned.
In the year 527 AH, Ibn Rudhmīr marched and encamped before the town of Ifrāgha ⦗2⦘, where Ibn Mardanīsh was present. The siege grew long, so the inhabitants wrote to the Commander of the Muslims, Ibn Tāshfīn, imploring relief. He in turn wrote to his son Tāshfīn ibn ʿAlī and to the emir Yaḥyā ibn Ghāniyah, ordering them to aid the town and bring provisions into it. Four thousand men prepared to relieve them, but…"