Abu Nasr Malik ibn al-Haytham al-Khuza'i () was an early

Abbasid The Abbasid Caliphate or Abbasid Empire (; ) was the third caliphate to succeed the prophets and messengers in Islam, Islamic prophet Muhammad. It was founded by a dynasty descended from Muhammad's uncle, Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib (566–653 C ...

follower and military leader.

Biography

Khurasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West Asia, West and Central Asia that encompasses wes ...

i Arab from the

Banu Khuza'a The Banū Khuzāʿah (, singular ''Khuzāʿī'') are an Azdite, Qahtanite tribe, one of the main ancestral tribes of Arabia. They ruled Mecca and were the Kings of Hejaz for 500 years, before the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and many members of t ...

tribe, he was one of earliest followers of the Abbasid missionary effort (''

da'wa ' (, , "invitation", also spelt , , , or ) is the act of inviting people to Islam. The plural is () or (). Preachers who engage in dawah are known as da'i. Etymology literally means "issuing a summons" or "making an invitation". Gramma ...

'') in Khurasan, and eventually became one of the principal leaders ("the twelve '' naqaba'''") of the—as yet secret—Abbasid movement.Crone (1980), p. 181Sharon (1990), p. 104 On the outbreak of the Abbasid Revolution in late 747, he was chosen by the Abbasid leaders as camp commander and head of the security force (''

shurta ''Shurṭa'' () is the common Arabic term for police. Its literal meaning is that of a "picked" or elite force. The ''shurṭa'' or police force were established in the early days of the Caliphate, perhaps as early as the caliphate of Uthman (644 ...

'') under the main Abbasid commander,

Abu Muslim Abu Muslim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muslim al-Khurasani (; ; 718/19 or 723/27 – 755) was a Persian general who led the Abbasid Revolution that toppled the Umayyad dynasty, leading to the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate. Little is known ab ...

, while his son Nasr was named as his deputy. In this capacity, Malik participated in the battles of the Abbasid Revolution in Khurasan and in the offensive westwards under Abu Muslim. After the success of the Revolution, Malik became one of the closest adherents of Abu Muslim. After the suppression of the revolt of

Abdallah ibn Ali Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAlī (; – 764 CE) was a member of the Abbasid dynasty, and played a leading role in its rise to power during the Abbasid Revolution. As governor of Syria, he consolidated Abbasid control over the province, el ...

against Caliph

al-Mansur Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Manṣūr (; ‎; 714 – 6 October 775) usually known simply as by his laqab al-Manṣūr () was the second Abbasid caliph, reigning from 754 to 775 succeeding his brother al-Saffah (). He is known ...

(r. 754–775) in

Syria Syria, officially the Syrian Arab Republic, is a country in West Asia located in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. It borders the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Turkey to Syria–Turkey border, the north, Iraq to Iraq–Syria border, t ...

in 754, the long-simmering tension between Abu Muslim—who had come to rule Khurasan as a near-sovereign prince, practically independent of the Abbasid family—and al-Mansur came to the fore. Malik counselled Abu Muslim to return straight to Khurasan for his own safety, but Abu Muslim was loath to effect a complete breach and accepted the summons of the Caliph. During the subsequent audience, the Caliph had Abu Muslim executed. Following the murder of Abu Muslim, Malik was briefly arrested, but reconciled himself with the Abbasids and regained the Caliph's favour when he came to al-Mansur's aid during the '' Rawandiya'' uprising in 758/9. He was then rewarded with the governorship of

Mosul Mosul ( ; , , ; ; ; ) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. It is the second largest city in Iraq overall after the capital Baghdad. Situated on the banks of Tigris, the city encloses the ruins of the ...

, which he held from 759/60 until 763. He is not mentioned any more, and probably died at about the same time. Nevertheless, his family remained among the most powerful in the ''Khurasaniyya'', the Khurasani army that had borne the Abbasids to power and remained the main pillar of the early Abbasid regime, and his descendants through his sons Nasr,

Hamza The hamza ( ') () is an Arabic script character that, in the Arabic alphabet, denotes a glottal stop and, in non-Arabic languages, indicates a diphthong, vowel, or other features, depending on the language. Derived from the letter '' ʿayn'' ( ...

, Ja'far, Dawud and especially Abdallah continued to hold high military and administrative offices until well into the 9th century,Kennedy (1986), pp. 80–81

References

Sources

* * * {{cite book , last=Sharon , first = Moshe , title = Revolt: the social and military aspects of the ʿAbbāsid revolution , location = Jerusalem , publisher = Graph Press Ltd. , year = 1990 , isbn = 965-223-388-9 , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=cTLMgO9dU4cC 760s deaths Generals of the Abbasid Caliphate Abbasid governors of Mosul Year of birth unknown 8th-century Arab people