Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid

The Khalid ibn al-Walid Mosque in Homs, where Abd al-Rahman is believed to have been buried

Abd al-Rahman was born in c. 616,[1] the son of the prominent Muslim general and member of the Qurayshi clan of Banu Makhzum, Khalid ibn al-Walid.[2] Abd al-Rahman's mother was Khalid's wife Asma, the daughter of Anas ibn Mudrik, a prominent chieftain and poet of the Khath'am tribe who was active during the pre-Islamic period and died several years after the advent of Islam in the 620s.[2][3] Abd al-Rahman likely entered military service during the caliphate of Uthman (r. 644–656).[2] During Uthman's reign, he was appointed the governor of Jund Hims (military district of Homs) by Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan, the overall governor of the province of Syria.[4][5] Abd al-Rahman was dispatched by Mu'awiya to command a number of military campaigns against the Byzantines in Anatolia and was referred to in the Greek sources "Abderachman".[5][6] He fended off a raid against Mu'awiya's territory in the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) by the Iraqi forces of Caliph Ali (r. 656–661) in 657.[5] Later that year, Abd al-Rahman served as a commander in the Syrian army of Mu'awiya against Ali at the Battle of Siffin,[2] where he fought with distinction and held the banner of the Syrians.[7] His brother Muhajir fought for Ali's side in the same battle and was killed.[7] During the subsequent arbitration talks in Adhruh or Dumat al-Jandal in 658 or 659 between the representatives of Ali and Mu'awiya, Abd al-Rahman was among those in the latter's faction to witness the arbitration document.[8]

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]

• Taba'een

• 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.
• Crone, P. (1978). "Khālid b. al-Walīd". In van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume IV: Iran–Kha (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 928–929. OCLC 758278456.
• Della Vida, G. Levi (1978). "Khathʿam". In van Donzel, E.; Lewis, B.; Pellat, Ch. & Bosworth, C. E. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume IV: Iran–Kha (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 1105–1106. OCLC 758278456.
• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya, ed. (1993). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XI: The Challenge to the Empires. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-0851-3.
• Gibb, H. A. R. (1960). "ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Khālid b. al-Walīd". In Gibb, H. A. R.; Kramers, J. H.; Lévi-Provençal, E.; Schacht, J.; Lewis, B. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume I: A–B (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. p. 85. OCLC 495469456.
• Graebner, Michael David (1975), The Role of the Slavs Within the Byzantine Empire, 500–1018, Rutgers University Press
• Hawting, G. R., ed. (1996). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XVII: The First Civil War: From the Battle of Siffīn to the Death of ʿAlī, A.D. 656–661/A.H. 36–40. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-2393-6.
• Hinds, M. (1991). "Makhzūm". In Bosworth, C. E.; van Donzel, E. & Pellat, Ch. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam. Volume VI: Mahk–Mid (2nd ed.). Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 137–140. ISBN 978-90-04-08112-3.
• Humphreys, R. Stephen, ed. (1990). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XV: The Crisis of the Early Caliphate: The Reign of ʿUthmān, A.D. 644–656/A.H. 24–35. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 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.
• Morony, Michael G., ed. (1987). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XVIII: Between Civil Wars: The Caliphate of Muʿāwiyah, 661–680 A.D./A.H. 40–60. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-87395-933-9.