Sulayman ibn Sa'd al-Khushani

Umar II (r. 717–720) and then again through the reign of Yazid II

Arab of the Khushayn tribe, which formed part of the larger Quda'a confederation long resident in Syria.^[2] His father, Sa'd, was a Christian and Sulayman too had possibly been a Christian.^[2] A number of traditional Muslim historians name him as the son of "Sa'id, mawla of al-Husayn", but this is an error, likely originating from a typographical mistake in an earlier source.^[3] According to the historian Martin Sprengling, Sulayman was well-versed in Arabic and Greek, as evidenced by the role he was assigned by Caliph Abd al-Malik as the katib (secretary) for official correspondence.^[2]

Sarjun ibn Mansur al-Rumi, a native Melkite Christian who served under caliphs Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), Yazid I (r. 680–683), Mu'awiya II (r. 683–684) and Abd al-Malik's father, Marwan I (r. 684–685).^[4] By dint of his experience and skill, Sarjun was kept in his post by Abd al-Malik for the majority of his reign.^[5] The caliph appointed Sulayman to the department of official correspondence and maintained closer relations with Sulayman, whom he had handpicked at a young age, than the elderly Sarjun, whom he inherited from previous administrations.^[3] Abd al-Malik had grown increasingly resentful of Sarjun's significant influence and perceived sense of indispensability and sought to dismiss him. According to the 9th-century Muslim historians al-Baladhuri and al-Mada'ini, when Abd al-Malik informed Sulayman of his dilemma with Sarjun, the former proposed to the caliph converting the language of the tax administration from Greek to Arabic.^[6] Unlike his Syria-centered predecessors, Abd al-Malik had spent most of his life in Medina, where only Arabic was spoken, and was unfamiliar with other languages or with the Greek and Syrian officials who had dominated the administration in Syria since the Byzantine era.^[7] Moreover, following his victory in the Second Muslim Civil War in 692, he embarked on a major centralization drive, which came with measures to unify the caliphate's widely varied tax systems.^[8] Already in 697, the transition from Persian to Arabic in the Iraqi bureaucracy had been carried out by Salih ibn Abd al-Rahman under Abd al-Malik's governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf and possibly served as a model for Sulayman to emulate.^[2] To cover the expenses of the transition, Sulayman requested and received a year's worth of the revenues of Jund al-Urdunn, totaling some 180,000 gold dinars.^[2][9] The order had been kept secret from Sarjun and in less than a year Sulayman completed the transition in 700.^[10][9] Though Sarjun and his clerks were consequently dismissed,^[2] the Byzantine system was maintained and Greek-speaking officials with knowledge of Arabic were retained; the only major change was the language of the system.^[11]

Umar II dismissed Sulayman for unknown reasons.^[2] He was reappointed by Caliph Yazid II and was apparently kept in the post until Yazid's death in 724, after which there is no further mention of Sulayman.^[2] His eldest son, Thabit, is briefly mentioned in 744 as holding an official post,^[6] the secretary of official correspondences under Caliph Yazid III,^[12] and had previously sheltered Yazid III in his Damascus residence during his rebellion against his predecessor, al-Walid II.^[13] In the aftermath of the Umayyad dynasty's downfall in 750, Sulayman's family disappears from the historical record.^[2]