Abu'l-Fada'il Sa'id al-Dawla was the third Hamdanid ruler of the Emirate of Aleppo. He succeeded his father Sa'd al-Dawla in 991, but throughout his reign real power rested in the hands of Sa'd al-Dawla's former chamberlain, Lu'lu', to whose daughter Sa'id was wed. His reign was dominated by the Fatimid Caliphate's repeated attempts to conquer Aleppo, which was prevented only by the intervention of the Byzantine Empire. Warfare lasted until 1000, when a peace treaty was concluded guaranteeing Aleppo's continued existence as a buffer state between the two powers. Finally, in January 1002 Sa'id al-Dawla died, possibly poisoned by Lu'lu', and Lu'lu' assumed control of Aleppo in his own name.

Sa'id al-Dawla's father, Sa'd al-Dawla, had only with difficulty managed to first secure a measure of control over his domains, and then to maintain a precarious autonomy by manoeuvring between the Byzantine Empire, the Fatimids of Egypt, and the Buyids in Iraq, alternating between warfare and recognizing the suzerainty of each power in turn. The once-proud emirate, which under Sa'id al-Dawla's grandfather Sayf al-Dawla included all of northern Syria and much of the Jazira, had now shrunk to the region around Aleppo. Sa'd al-Dawla's domestic position was precarious, and his state was impoverished and militarily impotent. After the Byzantine–Fatimid peace of 987/8, he came to depend once more on the Byzantines, and it was Byzantine troops that helped him defeat a Fatimid-sponsored attempt to seize Aleppo by the former Hamdanid governor Bakjur in April 991.

Following Sa'd al-Dawla's death in December 991, his young son Abu'l-Fada'il, known by the laqab of "Sa'id al-Dawla", succeeded him as emir. Sa'id al-Dawla was under the influence of his chief minister and later father-in-law, Lu'lu', who continued to support the alliance with the Byzantines. Many of his rivals, resenting his power, defected upon Sa'd al-Dawla's death to the Fatimids, who now resumed their attacks on Aleppo. As M. Canard writes, "the history of [Sa'id al-Dawla's] reign is almost exclusively that of the attempts of Fatimid Egypt to gain the emirate of Aleppo, which were opposed by the Byzantine emperor".

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