It continues with the assumption of command by the Kilab and the participation of the Kilabite al-Sahsa in the campaigns of Prince Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik against the Eastern Romans, including the Siege of Constantinople (717–718), his adventures in the desert and his death.
This is possibly the feminine form of the name Dalham ("wolf"), but is more usually interpreted as a corruption of the honorific Dhat al-Himma, "woman of noble purpose", which also appears in the tale along with other variants, the most common of which is Delhemma.
On its return, the Muslim army is ambushed in a defile by the Romans, and only 400 men, including the Caliph, al-Battal, Delhemma, and Abd al-Wahhab, managed to escape, but the amir Amr is killed.
[10][11] The second and longest portion, from section six on, reflects the events of the Abbasid period and probably draws on a cycle of tales about the real-life amir of Malatya, Amr ibn Ubaydallah al-Aqta, and the tribe of the Sulaym.
Thus the Kilabites Dalhama and her son Abd al-Wahhab—in reality, like al-Battal, an Umayyad military leader—are the chief heroes, and the amir Amr ibn Ubaydallah is reduced to a secondary role.
[12][13] The romance purports to be an accurate history, but, as Canard comments, in reality this means an "often very vague recollection of a certain number of facts and historical personages, garbed in romantic trappings and presented in an imaginary way, with constant disregard for chronology and probability".
[8] From the Umayyad era, the chief elements are those concerning the life of Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik, while the Abbasid material is treated unevenly: major events such as the founding of Baghdad or the civil war between Amin and Ma'mun are recorded in passing, while other episodes are heavily distorted, such as the attribution of the theft of the Black Stone from Mecca to a Khariji in Harun al-Rashid's time instead of the Qarmatians more than a century later.
[8] For its Byzantine material, the romance draws upon Maslama's siege of Constantinople in 717–718, the establishment of the fortified Thughur frontier zone—of which Malatya was one of the major centres—under al-Mansur, Mu'tasim's conquest of Amorium in 838, and the exploits of the amir Amr al-Aqta, and of his Paulician ally Karbeas, who is possibly the archetype of Yanis.
In addition, many elements were taken from the 10th-century warfare between the Hamdanid amir Sayf al-Dawla and the Eastern Roman generals John Kourkouas and Nikephoros Phokas, who are recognizable as the characters of Qarqiyas and Takafur in the romance, while the usurper emperor Armanus in all likelihood echoes Romanos Lekapenos.
[11] Other influences are later still: the conflict for the headship of the Arab tribes in Syria reflects the realities of the Ayyubid era rather than the Caliphate, the Crusaders and the Seljuq Turks appear, while customs and manners are those of the Islamic Levant in the 10th–13th centuries.