Al-Baṭṭāl went on to say:
I immediately set off after them. She tried to hold me back, fearing what they might do to me, but I refused. I spurred my mount until I overtook them, charged their leader, and his men scattered away from him. He tried to escape, yet I closed in, struck off his head, stripped him of his gear, slung the head across my saddle, and rode back to the monastery. The women came out and stood before me. I said, “Mount!”—so they mounted whatever animals were there. I drove them on until I reached the commander of the army and handed them over to him. He allowed me to take as booty whichever of them I wished, so I chose that very beautiful woman; she is the mother of my children.
In the Greek tongue the word patrikios (biṭrīq) means their high-ranking noble, and her father was indeed a great patrician among them. Afterward I used to correspond with him and exchange gifts.
Muḥammad ibn ʿĀʾidh relates—through al-Walīd—that he heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rāshid, the client of Khuzāʿah, report on the authority of someone who heard it directly from al-Baṭṭāl: when Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān appointed al-Baṭṭāl over al-Maṣṣīṣa, the latter sent a raiding party into Byzantine territory. When no word of them reached him and he did not know what had become of them, he mounted a horse and rode off alone until he arrived at ʿAmmūriyya.
He knocked on its gate by night, and the gatekeeper asked, “Who is it?”
Al-Baṭṭāl replied, “I am the king’s executioner and his envoy to the patrician.” The man led him straight in. When I entered, I found the patrician seated upon a throne, so I sat beside him on it.
I said, “I have come with a message. Order these people to withdraw.” So he dismissed those who were present.
He then rose, locked the church door on the two of us, returned, and sat in his place. I drew my sword, struck him on the head with the flat of the blade, and said, “I am al-Baṭṭāl. Tell me the truth about what I ask you, or I will cut off your head this instant.”
He said, “What do you want to know?”
I asked, “What news have you of the raiding party I dispatched?”
He answered, “They are in my lands, seizing whatever they can. A letter has just come to me saying that they are in such-and-such a valley. By Allah, I have spoken the truth.”
I said, “Give me safe-conduct.” He granted it.
I said, “Bring me food.” He ordered his men, who brought a meal that was set before me. I ate, then rose to leave.
He told his men, “Go out ahead of the king’s envoy.” They ran before me as an escort. I made my way to the valley he had mentioned, found my men there, gathered them together, and returned with them to al-Maṣṣīṣa. That is the strangest thing that ever happened.
Al-Walīd adds: One of our elders told me that he saw al-Baṭṭāl returning from pilgrimage. He had been so occupied with jihad that he had never managed to perform the ḥajj, and he would constantly ask Allah for pilgrimage followed by martyrdom. He was able to perform the obligatory ḥajj only in the very year he was martyred—may Allah have mercy on him.
The cause of his martyrdom was that Leo, king of the Byzantines, marched out of Constantinople with one hundred thousand cavalry. The patrician whose daughter al-Baṭṭāl had married—the woman whose story we have just related—sent word to al-Baṭṭāl informing him of this. Al-Baṭṭāl relayed the news to the commander of the Muslim forces, the emir Mālik ibn Shabīb,
and said to him, “The sound policy is for us to fortify ourselves in the city of Ḥarrān and remain there until Sulaymān ibn Hishām arrives with the Muslim armies.” The emir refused, and the Byzantine host descended upon them. A fierce battle broke out, with al-Baṭṭāl in the very forefront of the champions. No one dared mention his name for fear the Byzantines would recognize him,
until one of the Muslims, meaning to ransom him, inadvertently uttered his name. When the Byzantine horsemen heard it they charged him all at once, wrenched him from his saddle with their lances, hurled him to the ground, and then swept on after the rest of the Muslims, killing and taking prisoners.