Hatim ibn al-Nu'man

Hatim ibn al-Nu'man was a sharif (tribal noble) of the Bahila, a Qays tribe, in Basra, one of the principal Arab garrison towns of Iraq. He thereafter settled in the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia). During the First Muslim Civil War, he was among the sharifs expelled from Iraq by Caliph Ali (r. 656–661). Hatim fought on the side of Mu'awiya, the governor of Syria and Ali's chief opponent, at the Battle of Siffin in 657.[1] Mu'awiya ultimately defeated Ali and founded the Umayyad Caliphate in 661. During his reign, in 665 or 666, Hatim was among the commanders dispatched to govern parts of Khurasan, the eastern frontier of the Caliphate, according to the 9th-century history of al-Tabari.[2]

During the Second Muslim Civil War, he defected from the Umayyads, and joined their rivals, the Zubayrids, who held sway over Iraq and much of the Jazira. Under the Zubayrid governor of Mosul, Ibn al-Ashtar, Hatim served as the deputy governor of the Jaziran towns of Harran and Edessa.[3]

His descendants, known as the 'Banu Hatim' after him, served as governors of the Jazira and the affiliated provinces of Armenia and Adharbayjan under the Umayyads and were active participants of the Qaysi faction against the Yaman, their rivals for power and influence in the Caliphate.

• Crone, Patricia (1980). Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic Polity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-52940-9.
• 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.