The great emir Mālik ibn Shabīb was slain, the Muslims were routed, and they fled to that ruined city and barricaded themselves inside it. At daybreak Leon came and stood upon the battlefield; there he found al-Baṭṭāl slipping away in his last breaths.
Leon said to him, “What is this, Abū Yaḥyā?”
He replied, “Thus are heroes killed.”
Leon summoned the physicians to tend him, but his wounds had reached his vital organs.
Leon asked, “Have you any request, Abū Yaḥyā?”
“Yes.”
“And what is it?”
“Command the Muslim captives you hold to wash my body, perform the funeral prayer over me, and bury me.”
The king complied, releasing those prisoners for that purpose.
Leon then advanced against the Muslims who had taken refuge in the city and besieged them. While they were in the grip of that hardship, couriers arrived bearing news that Sulaymān ibn Hishām was approaching with the Muslim armies. Leon thereupon fled with his vile host, retreating to his own land—may Allah disfigure him—entered Constantinople, and fortified himself there.
Khalīfah ibn Khayyāṭ ⦗1⦘ said: “Al-Baṭṭāl’s death and slaying in Byzantine territory occurred in the year 121 AH.”
Ibn Jarīr ⦗2⦘ said: “It was in 122 AH.”
Ibn Ḥassān al-Ziyādī said: “He was killed in 113 AH.”
I say: Others have made the same claim—that he and the emir ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Bukht were killed in 113 AH, as we have mentioned. Allah knows best. Yet Ibn Jarīr dated his death only to that year, and Allah knows best.
Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh said: It was asked of al-Baṭṭāl, “What is bravery?” He answered, “To endure for an hour.”
I say: This is Ibn ʿAsākir’s epitome of al-Baṭṭāl’s biography, compiled with thorough investigation of the reports. As for what the common folk relate about al-Baṭṭāl in the romance attributed to Dalhamah, al-Baṭṭāl, the emir ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, and the judge ʿUqbah, it is sheer falsehood and fabrication—insipid invention, gross ignorance, and blatant confusion, believed only by the dull-witted or the most ignorant of people. The same applies to the spurious romance of ʿAntarah al-ʿAbsī, and likewise to the tales of al-Bakrī, al-Danaf, and others.
The deliberate lies concocted in the romance of al-Bakrī are an even greater sin and crime than the rest, for their author falls under the Prophet’s ﷺ saying:
“Whoever deliberately lies about me, let him take his seat in the Fire.” ⦗3⦘
Among the notable persons who died this year were:
• Ilyās the Astute ⦗4⦘—that is, Ilyās ibn Muʿāwiyah ibn