Al-Walid ibn Hisham was the grandson of al-Walid ibn Uqba from the Abu Mu'ayt line of the Umayyad clan. In 712/13 he led a raid into Byzantine territory as far as the fortress of Gazelon (called Ghazala by the Arabs) near Amasya in northern Anatolia. According to al-Waqidi, al-Walid alongside Amr ibn Qays al-Kindi led a further expedition against the Byzantines in 716/17, in the course of which several Arab troops from the army of Antioch were slain. He reached as far as the outskirts of Constantinople, where he killed a number of the inhabitants and took several captives. This was during the initial stages of the great Umayyad assault on Constantinople, led by Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik.