Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid ibn Musafir al-Fahmi () was a governor of

Egypt Egypt ( , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country spanning the Northeast Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to northe ...

for the

Umayyad Caliphate 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 member o ...

from 735 to 736. A

Qays Qays ʿAylān (), often referred to simply as Qays (''Kais'' or ''Ḳays'') were an Arab tribal confederation that branched from the Mudar group. The tribe may not have functioned as a unit in pre-Islamic Arabia (before 630). However, by the ea ...

Arab, Abd al-Rahman originally served as chief of police (''

sahib al-shurta ''Shurṭa'' () is the common Arabic term for police. Its literal meaning is that of a "picked" or elite force. The ''shurṭa'' or police force were established in the early days of the Caliphate, perhaps as early as the caliphate of Uthman (644� ...

'') for al-Walid ibn Rifa'a al-Fahmi before himself succeeding to the governorship upon al-Walid's death in mid-735. He remained in office until a

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

sea attack in the following year caused several

Muslims Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

to be taken prisoner; as a result, the caliph

Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (; 6 February 743) was the tenth Umayyad caliph, ruling from 724 until his death in 743. Early life Hisham was born in Damascus, the administrative capital of the Umayyad Caliphate, in AH 72 (691–692 CE). Hi ...

lost faith in his skill with military matters and replaced him with

Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi Hanzala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi () was an Umayyad governor of Egypt from 721 to 724 and again 737 to 742, and subsequently governor of Ifriqiya from 742 to 745. Governor in Egypt Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi arrived in Egypt around 720, in the compa ...

instead.; ; .

Notes

References

* * * 8th-century Arab people 8th-century Umayyad governors of Egypt Taba‘ at-Tabi‘in hadith narrators {{Islam-bio-stub