Qays ibn al-Haytham al-Sulami

Qays ibn al-Haytham al-Sulamī (Arabic: قيس بن الهيثم السلمي) (fl. 649 – 684) was an Arab commander and administrator in the service of the Rashidun, Umayyad and Zubayrid caliphates. Under the caliphs Uthman (r. 644–656) and Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680) he served at time as the sub-governor of Khurasan and the cities of Nishapur and Marw al-Rudh. He was from a prominent Arab family in Basra and was a leader among the tribal nobility of that city until his death after 684.

Qays ibn al-Haytham belonged to the Banu Sulaym tribe, a component of the Qays/Mudar faction.^[1] He came from a prominent family in Basra,^[2] part of the Mudar ashraf (Arab tribal nobility).^[1] His full name is given as Qays ibn al-Haytham ibn Qays ibn al-Salt ibn Habib^[2] or Qays ibn al-Haytham ibn Asma ibn al-Salt.^[3] The 8th-century historian Sayf ibn Umar names Qays's brother Amr as a participant in the Muslim conquest of Iraq in 634, but this was deemed implausible by the historian Khalid Yahya Blankinship.^[2] According to al-Baladhuri, an uncle of Qays, Asim ibn Qays ibn al-Salt, was appointed by Abu Musa al-Ash'ari governor of the town of Manadhir in the Ahwaz region after it was conquered from the Sasanians by Rabi ibn Ziyad al-Harithi around 638.^[4]

Qays was appointed by Caliph Uthman (r. 644–656) over the Nishapur district of Khurasan in 649/50.^[5] Before his assassination in 656, Uthman expanded Qays' governorship to the entire province of Khurasan.^[5] Qays appointed his paternal cousin, Abd Allah ibn Khazim al-Sulami, as his deputy governor and left the province for Basra to assess the political situation in the wake of Uthman's death; however, Ibn Khazim, using a diploma he previously obtained from the governor of Basra, Abd Allah ibn Amir, declared himself governor and remained in the post until his dismissal by Caliph Ali (r. 656–661).^[6] Qays was angered by his cousin's ruse and reportedly stated: "I had a better right than Abd Allah to be the son of [Abd Allah's mother] Ajla."^[5] When Mu'awiya I acceded to the caliphate in 661, Qays was reappointed governor of Khurasan by the order of Ibn Amir or the caliph himself.^[7] He remained in the post for two years.^[7] He was again replaced by his cousin Abd Allah after failing to quell a revolt at Qarin and briefly imprisoned in Basra until his mother intervened on his behalf.^[8] He was later made the deputy governor of Basra by Ibn Amir when the latter visited Mu'awiya's court in Syria in 664.^[9]

After Ziyad ibn Abihi was appointed governor of Basra in 665, he appointed Qays as governor of Marw al-Rudh in Khurasan.^[10] In 678/79, Ziyad's son Abd al-Rahman was made governor of Khurasan by Mu'awiya.^[11] By then, Qays had become the leader of the Banu Sulaym faction of Basra, one of five tribal divisions of the city's garrison.^[12] Abd al-Rahman appointed Qays his deputy and had him enter the province ahead of him. Afterward, Qays arrested the powerful tribal chief Aslam ibn Zur'a al-Kilabi.^[11] During the reign of Caliph Yazid I (r. 680–683), in 680/81, the caliph's new appointee over Khurasan, Abd al-Rahman's brother Salm, dispatched his lieutenant al-Harith ibn Mu'awiya al-Harithi to settle matters for him in the province before his arrival. Al-Harith arrested and imprisoned Qays and put his son Shabib in shackles.^[13] Qays later returned to Basra where he continued as a nobleman of the Sulaym and the wider Mudar confederation (which was opposed to the Azd–Rabi'a confederation).^[14] Together with a Basran tribal noble from the Azd–Rabi'a faction, al-Nu'man ibn Suhban al-Rasibi, Qays was an arbitrator for selecting the successor of Ubayd Allah ibn Ziyad as governor of Basra following Ubayd Allah's expulsion in the aftermath of Yazid's death in 683.^[15]

Basra and most of the Caliphate recognized the Mecca-based, anti-Umayyad Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr as caliph. Qays was dispatched with the Basran security forces to stamp out an attempt by supporters of al-Mukhtar al-Thaqafi, the pro-Alid ruler of Kufa, to gain control of Basra.^[16] He died after 684.^[2]

• 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.
• Fishbein, Michael, ed. (1990). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XXI: The Victory of the Marwānids, A.D. 685–693/A.H. 66–73. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-0221-4.
• 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.
• 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.
• Hawting, G. R., ed. (1989). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XX: The Collapse of Sufyānid Authority and the Coming of the Marwānids: The Caliphates of Muʿāwiyah II and Marwān I and the Beginning of the Caliphate of ʿAbd al-Malik, A.D. 683–685/A.H. 64–66. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-88706-855-3.
• Howard, I. K. A., ed. (1990). The History of al-Ṭabarī, Volume XIX: The Caliphate of Yazīd ibn Muʿāwiyah, A.D. 680–683/A.H. 60–64. SUNY Series in Near Eastern Studies. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-0040-1.
• 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.
• Murgotten, Francis Clark (1924). The Origins of the Islamic State, Being a Translation from the Arabic, Accompanied with Annotations, Geographic and Historic Notes of the Kitâb Fitûh al-Buldân of al-Imâm Abu-l Abbâs Ahmad Ibn-Jâbir al-Balâdhuri, Part 2. New York and London: Columbia University & Longman, Green & Co.
• 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.^{[dead link]}