Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya al-Katib () was the secretary to the last

Umayyad The Umayyad Caliphate or Umayyad Empire (, ; ) was the second caliphate established after the death of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and was ruled by the Umayyad dynasty. Uthman ibn Affan, the third of the Rashidun caliphs, was also a membe ...

Caliph,

Marwan II Marwan ibn Muhammad ibn Marwan (; – 6 August 750), commonly known as Marwan II, was the fourteenth and last caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate, ruling from 744 until his death. His reign was dominated by a Third Fitna, civil war, and he was the l ...

, and a supreme stylist of early

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

prose.Islamic History in Arabia and Middle East
/ref> Quote: :''Cultivate the Arabic language so that you may speak correctly; develop a handsome script which will add luster to your writings; learn the poetry of the Arabs by heart; familiarize yourself with unusual ideas and expressions; read the history of the Arabs and the Persians, and remember their great deeds'' He may have been a descendant of a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

captive at the battle of Qadesiya who became a ''

mawlā ''Mawlā'' (, plural ''mawālī'' ), is a polysemous Classical Arabic, Arabic word, whose meaning varied in different periods and contexts.A.J. Wensinck, Encyclopedia of Islam 2nd ed, Brill. "Mawlā", vol. 6, p. 874. Before the Islamic Prophet ...

'' (freedman) of the Qorashī clan of the Banu Amer b. Loʾayy. Some accounts, however, make the less likely claim that he was of this clan, hence of pure Arab descent. According to the ''Encyclopedia of Islam'' (3rd edition), Abd al-Hamid al-Katib was "a third-generation Muslim of non-Arab, probably Persian, extraction".

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Abd Al-Hamid Al-Katib Year of birth unknown 749 deaths Medieval Arabic-language writers 8th-century people from the Umayyad Caliphate Government of the Umayyad Caliphate People of Iranian descent