Likewise, Abū Muhammad al-Battāl was a well-known Muslim commander. The Muslims had undertaken two expeditions against Constantinople.

The first was during the caliphate of Mu‘āwiya, who placed his son Yazīd in command. Abū Ayyūb al-Ansārī accompanied him—the Companion in whose house the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, stayed when he emigrated to Medina. Abū Ayyūb died during that expedition and was buried near Constantinople. Al-Bukhārī narrated in his Sahīh, from Ibn ‘Umar, that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said:

“The first army to campaign against Constantinople will be forgiven.”

The second expedition was during the caliphate of ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Marwān. He placed his son Maslama in command—or left his son al-Walīd in his place—and sent a vast army with him. They besieged the city and remained there for several years. They then concluded a peace agreement with its people allowing them to enter it, and built a mosque there. That mosque remains to this day.

Then the liars came and added to the tales of al-Battāl and ‘Abd al-Wahhāb more falsehoods than anyone but Allah can count. These accounts mentioned Dalhama, the judge ‘Aqibah, and things with no basis in reality.

Al-Bakrī, the author of Tanaqqulāt al-Anwār (The Passage of the Lights), followed the path of these lying fabricators. Yet his lies about Allah’s Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his Companions—the finest of creation after the prophets—are even more numerous. His book contains kinds of fabricated falsehoods and outlandish inventions that defy description, such as the tale of the Seven Fortresses