Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid
Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid | |
---|---|
Native name | Arabic: عَبْدُ الرَّحْمَن بْنِ خَالِد بْنِ الْوَلِيد, romanized: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khālid ibn al-Walīd |
Born | Mecca | 10 June 616
Died | 21 August 666 Syria | (aged 50)
Allegiance | |
Years of service | 644-666 |
Rank | Commander |
Battles/wars |
|
Children | Khalid ibn Abd al-Rahman |
Relations | Khalid ibn al-Walid (father) Asma bint Anas ibn Mudrik (mother) |
Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid ibn al-Walid (
Life
Abd al-Rahman was born in c. 616,
Abd al-Rahman continued as governor of Jund Hims during the caliphate of Mu'awiya beginning in 661.[2] In 664/665 and 665/666, he led the winter campaigns against the Byzantines along the Anatolian front.[9] According to the Muslim traditional sources, Abd al-Rahman posed a threat to Mu'awiya's ambitions to appoint his own Yazid as his successor and the caliph resolved to eliminate him.[5] At the time, he was the last surviving son of Khalid ibn al-Walid and his descent from the reputable general, as well as his own valor and effectiveness fighting the Byzantines, had endeared him to the Syrian Arabs.[10] To that end, Mu'awiya allegedly had his Christian physician, Ibn Uthal, poison Abd al-Rahman upon the latter's return to Homs from the Byzantine front in 666.[5][10] The physician was later killed by a kinsman of Abd al-Rahman called Khalid, who was either his son or the son of his brother Muhajir.[11] This Khalid was consequently imprisoned and fined Ibn Uthal's blood money by Mu'awiya to protect him from potential retaliation.[5][12] Relations between the influential Banu Makhzum, who were mostly concentrated in the Hejaz (western Arabia), and Mu'awiya deteriorated as a result of Abd al-Rahman's alleged poisoning.[7] The Orientalist historian Henri Lammens doubts the reliability of the narrative, which he relates to the anti-Christian violence in Homs around that time.[5] Abd al-Rahman's son Khalid was a commander of a naval campaign against the Byzantines in 668 or 669.[13][14]
The line of Khalid ibn al-Walid died out with the deaths of Abd al-Rahman's roughly forty male descendants as a result of a plague in Syria toward the end of the Umayyad period (661–750).[7] Abd al-Rahman is buried alongside his father and one of his father's wives, Fadda, in Homs.[15] In 1908, the Ottoman rulers of Syria built the Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque around the site claimed since at least the 12th century to contain their graves.[15]
References
- ^ Blankinship 1993, p. 90.
- ^ a b c d e Blankinship 1993, p. 90, note 498.
- ^ Della Vida 1978, p. 1106.
- ^ Humphreys 1990, p. 125.
- ^ a b c d e f g Gibb 1960, p. 85.
- ^ Graebner 1975, p. 74, note 5.
- ^ a b c d Hinds 1991, p. 139.
- ^ Hawting 1996, p. 87.
- ^ Morony 1987, pp. 71, 87.
- ^ a b Morony 1987, p. 88.
- ^ Hinds 1991, pp. 139–140.
- ^ Morony 1987, p. 89.
- ^ Crone 1978, p. 928.
- ^ Jankowiak 2013, p. 265.
- ^ a b Blackburn 2005, p. 75, note 195.
Bibliography
- Blackburn, Richard (2005). Journey to the Sublime Porte: The Arabic Memoir of a Sharifian Agent's Diplomatic Mission to the Ottoman Imperial Court in the Era of Suleyman the Magnificent. Orient-Institut. ISBN 9783899134414.
- OCLC 758278456.
- OCLC 758278456.
- ISBN 978-0-7914-0851-3.
- OCLC 495469456.
- Graebner, Michael David (1975), The Role of the Slavs Within the Byzantine Empire, 500–1018, Rutgers University Press
- ISBN 978-0-7914-2393-6.
- ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.
- ISBN 978-0-7914-0154-5.
- Jankowiak, Marek (2013). "The First Arab Siege of Constantinople". In Zuckerman, Constantin (ed.). Travaux et mémoires, Vol. 17: Constructing the Seventh Century. Paris: Association des Amis du Centre d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance. pp. 237–320. ISBN 978-2-916716-45-9.
- ISBN 978-0-87395-933-9.