the protection of his general Wasan Sagad. However, Wasan Sagad was slain near Mount Busat while fighting Ura'i Utman on 29 July (5 Nahase 1524 A.M.) and his army scattered. The Imam surprised the Emperor at the Battle of Amba Sel on 27 October, where the Emperor was almost captured, a reversal, in the words of R.S. Whiteway, that left Lebna Dengel "never in a position to offer a pitched battle to his enemies." The Imam's followers poured into Bet Amhara, pillaging every church they found, including Mekane Selassie, Atronsa Maryam, Debre Nagwadgwad and Ganata Giyorgis. Emperor Dawit fell back behind the Abay River to the relative security of Gojjam. Only their failure to capture the royal compound at Amba Geshen slowed the Muslims down. In April 1533, Ahmad once again assembled his troops at Debre Berhan to conquer—or at least ravage—the northern regions of Tigray, Begemder, and Gojjam. Both Ethiopia and Dawit suffered heavily from these assaults. The monastery of Debre Libanos was burned, and the establishments on the islands of Lake Tana looted. Dawit's eldest son Fiqtor was killed at Zara in Wag by a lieutenant of Ahmad on 7 April 1537; another son, Menas, was captured on 19 May 1539, and later sent to Yemen. Amba Geshen fell to another assault in January 1540, the royal prisoners interred there were slaughtered with their guards and the royal treasury looted. Later life During the years he lived as an outlaw in his own realm constantly hounded by Imam Ahmed's soldiers the Malassay, Dawit came to see Queen Eleni's wisdom in reaching out to Europe for help, and he dispatched João Bermudes, who had arrived in Ethiopia with Dom Rodrigo de Lima, to ask for it once again. However, this help in the form of Cristóvão da Gama and his picked troop of 400 did not reach Ethiopia until after Dawit had died at the mountain-top Debre Damo monastery on 2 September 1540. The Ethiopian historian Taddesse Tamrat writes, "The Muslim occupation of the Christian highlands under Ahmad Gragn lasted for little more than ten years, between 1531 and 1543. But the amount of destruction brought about in these years can only be estimated in terms of centuries." Dawit was succeeded by his son Gelawdewos, as his son Menas had been captured by Ahmad a year before Dawit died. His release wasn't secured until 1543, when Queen Seble Wongel