Sulayman ibn Hisham

Sulayman ibn Hisham
Allegiance	Umayyad Caliphate
Battles/wars	Arab–Byzantine wars, Third Fitna
Relations	Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (father); Maslama, Mu'awiya and Sa'id (brothers); Walid II and Yazid III (cousins)

Sulayman ibn Hisham (fl. 732–747) was an Arab general, the son of the Umayyad Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 723–743). He is known for his participation in the expeditions against the Byzantine Empire as well as his prominent role in the civil wars that occurred during the last years of the Umayyad Caliphate. Defeated by Marwan II (r. 744–750), he fled to India, where he died.

Sulayman is first attested as leading the northern summer expedition ("of the right") against Byzantine-held Anatolia in 732, and again in 735, 736 (this time into Armenia) and in 737, but on neither campaign does he seem to have accomplished anything of note. In 738 however, he sacked a Byzantine fortress called Sideroun ("Iron Fort") taking many prisoners, including its commander, Eustathios. In 740, he was placed in overall charge of the exceptionally large campaign prepared for that year, which according to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor totalled 90,000 men. Two task forces were sent first, one of 10,000 lightly armed men under al-Ghamr ibn Yazid which was to raid the western coast of Anatolia, and 20,000 under Abdallah al-Battal and al-Malik ibn Su'aib who followed after towards Akroinon. The main force of some 60,000 (the number is certainly much inflated), under Sulayman, raided Cappadocia with Tyana as their target. Sulayman failed to take the city, and returned home after plundering the countryside. The second task force however suffered a major defeat at the Battle of Akroinon, losing some two thirds of its men, as well as its commanders.

In the next year, Sulayman again led the summer campaign, and was again unsuccessful: while his forces besieged a Byzantine fortress, a disease struck their camp. Exacerbated by lack of supplies, this disease caused much loss of life both among men and beasts, while the army also suffered many casualties from the Byzantines' attacks. So bad was the situation that the 10th-century Arab Christian historian Agapius reports that many of Sulayman's soldiers even defected to the Byzantines and converted to Christianity. These failures were compounded by a Byzantine counter-attack shortly after which targeted Malatya. The city was saved, although Hisham himself had to take the field with whatever forces he could assemble; nevertheless, this attack, the first after many years of Byzantine passivity, signalled the shifting balance of power in the region. In the same year, Sulayman received and carried out his father's orders to execute all Byzantine prisoners, after a false report reached the Caliph that the Byzantines had executed their own Muslim prisoners. In 742 however, taking advantage of the Byzantine civil war between the usurper Artabasdos and Constantine V (r. 741–775), Sulayman led another raid which reached as far as Paphlagonia undisturbed and took many prisoners.

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