During the days of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, the Byzantines made a sea invasion to Tyre in the year 70 AH / 726 AD.

Khalid bin Al-Hasfan Al-Farsi (the Persian) confronted them and forced them to flee after he seized a ship from them that was docked on an island off Tyre and captured those on it.

[1] The mission of naval defense along the Levantine coast was entrusted to the commander of the sea, which meant Al-Aswad going out to chase the Byzantine invaders during their attack on a merchant ship at the frontier of Beirut.

He led a large expedition to the island of Cyprus, landing there in the year 125 AH / 743 AD, and brought a group of its people and settled them between Sidon and Tyre.

He assigned the Tanukhid tribes to head to the mountains of Beirut to protect the coasts of the Levant and Islamic possessions from the Byzantine danger and local hostile movements.

When Abu Jaafar Mansur al-Abbasi came to Syria in the year 142 AH / 758 AD, Prince Mundhir and Prince Arslan came from their homeland in Maarrat al-Nu`man with a group of their clan and they met him in As-Sham, and he had heard about their courage in fighting the Byzantines in Antioch and its suburbs, so he welcomed them and assigned them to go with their people to the mountains of Beirut to protect the coasts and frontiers in which he made them leaders of several fiefs.