Sulayman ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan (24 September 717) was the seventh Umayyad caliph, ruling from 715 until his death. He was the son of Caliph Abd al-Malik and Wallada bint al-Abbas. He began his career as governor of Palestine, while his father Abd al-Malik () and brother al-Walid I () reigned as caliphs. There, the theologian Raja ibn Haywa mentored him, and he forged close ties with Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, a major opponent of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, al-Walid's powerful viceroy of Iraq and the eastern Caliphate. Sulayman resented al-Hajjaj's influence over his brother. As governor, Sulayman founded the city of Ramla and built the White Mosque in it. The new city superseded Lydda as the district capital of Palestine. Lydda was at least partly destroyed and its inhabitants may have been forcibly relocated to Ramla, which developed into an economic hub, became home to many Muslim scholars, and remained the commercial and administrative center of Palestine until the 11th century.
After acceding as caliph, Sulayman dismissed his predecessor's governors and generals. Many had been handpicked by al-Hajjaj and had led the war efforts which brought the Caliphate to its greatest territorial extent. Among them were the conqueror of Transoxiana (Central Asia), Qutayba ibn Muslim, who was killed by his own troops in an abortive revolt in anticipation of his dismissal, and the conqueror of Sind (the western Indian subcontinent), Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, who was executed. In the west, Sulayman deposed Musa ibn Nusayr, the conqueror of the Iberian Peninsula (al-Andalus) and governor of Ifriqiya (central North Africa), and had his son Abd al-Aziz, governor of al-Andalus, assassinated. Although he continued his predecessors' militarist policies, expansion largely stopped under Sulayman, partly due to effective resistance along the Central Asian frontiers and the collapse of Arab military leadership and organization there after Qutayba's death. Sulayman's appointee over the eastern Caliphate, his confidant Yazid, invaded the southern Caspian coast in 716, but withdrew and settled for a tributary arrangement after being defeated by the local Iranian rulers. Sulayman intensified the war with the Byzantine Empire, the primary focus of his war efforts, culminating in the 717–718 siege of Constantinople, which ended in a disastrous Arab defeat.
Sulayman died in Dabiq during the siege. His eldest son and chosen successor, Ayyub, had predeceased him. Sulayman made the unconventional choice of nominating his cousin, Umar, as caliph, rather than a son or a brother. The siege of Constantinople and the coinciding of his reign with the approaching centennial of the Hijra (start of the Islamic calendar), led contemporary Arab poets to view Sulayman in messianic terms.
Early life The details about Sulayman's first thirty years of life in the medieval sources are scant. He was likely born in Medina around 675. His father, Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan, belonged to the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh tribe, while his mother, Wallada bint al-Abbas ibn al-Jaz, was a great-granddaughter of Zuhayr ibn Jadhima, a prominent 6th-century chieftain of the Arab tribe of Banu Abs. Sulayman was partly raised in the desert by his Banu Abs kinsmen.
At the time of his birth, the Caliphate was ruled by Sulayman's distant cousin, Mu'awiya I, who had founded the ruling Umayyad dynasty in 661. Following the deaths of Mu'awiya I's successors, Yazid I and Mu'awiya II, in 683 and 684, Umayyad authority collapsed across the Caliphate and most provinces recognized the non-Umayyad, Mecca-based, Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, as caliph. The Umayyads of Medina, including Sulayman, were therefore expelled from the city and became refugees in Syria, where they were supported by loyalist Arab tribes. These tribes elected Sulayman's grandfather, Marwan I, as caliph and formed the Yaman confederation in opposition to the Qaysi tribes, who dominated northern Syria and the Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia) and supported Ibn al-Zubayr. By 685, Marwan had reestablished Umayyad control over Syria and Egypt. Abd al-Malik, who succeeded him, had by 692 reconquered the rest of the Caliphate.
Governorship of Palestine
At an unknown date, Abd al-Malik appointed Sulayman governor of Jund Filastin (the military district of Palestine), a post Abd al-Malik formerly held under Marwan. Sulayman's appointment followed stints by the Caliph's uncle, Yahya ibn al-Hakam, and half-brother, Aban ibn Marwan. In 701, Sulayman led the Hajj rituals in Mecca. Before Abd al-Malik died in 705, he nominated his eldest son, al-Walid I, as his successor, to be followed by Sulayman. Sulayman remained governor of Palestine throughout al-Walid's reign, which lasted until 715. His governorship likely brought him in close contact with the Yamani chieftains who dominated the district. He established a strong relationship with Raja ibn Haywa al-Kindi, a local, Yamani-affiliated religious scholar who had previously supervised the construction of Abd al-Malik's Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Raja became Sulayman's tutor and senior aide.
Sulayman resented the influence of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, the viceroy of Iraq and the eastern parts of the Caliphate, over al-Walid, and cultivated ties with his opponents. In 708 or 709, he gave refuge to the fugitive and former governor of Khurasan, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, and his family, the Muhallabids. Al-Hajjaj had dismissed and imprisoned Yazid but he had escaped to Palestine. There, Yazid used his tribal connections with the district's large Yamani Azdi population to gain Sulayman's protection. Al-Walid was angered with Yazid's defiance of al-Hajjaj, so Sulayman offered to pay the fine al-Hajjaj had imposed on Yazid. He also sent the latter and his own son, Ayyub, in shackles to the Caliph, with a letter pleading for the Muhallabids' pardon, which the Caliph granted. Yazid became a close confidant of Sulayman, who held him in "the highest regard", according to a report by the historian Hisham ibn al-Kalbi (737–819). Hisham further noted "Yazid ... stayed with him [Sulayman], teaching him how to dress well, making delicious dishes for him, and giving him large presents". Yazid remained with Sulayman for nine months, or until al-Hajjaj died in 714, and highly influenced and prejudiced him against al-Hajjaj.
Foundation of Ramla
As governor, Sulayman founded the city of Ramla as the seat of his administration, replacing Lydda, the Muslims' original provincial capital and Sulayman's first residence in Palestine. Ramla remained the capital of Palestine through the Fatimid period (10th–11th centuries). His motives for founding Ramla were personal ambition and practical considerations. The location of Lydda, a long-established and prosperous city, was logistically and economically advantageous. Sulayman established his capital outside of the city proper. According to the historian Nimrod Luz, this was likely due to a lack of available space for wide-scale development and agreements dating to the Muslim conquest in the 630s that, at least formally, precluded him from confiscating desirable property within the city. In a tradition recorded by the historian Ibn Fadlallah al-Umari (d. 1347), a determined local Christian cleric refused Sulayman's requests for plots in the middle of Lydda. Infuriated, he attempted to have the cleric executed, but Raja dissuaded him and instead proposed building a new city at a superior, adjacent site. The historian Moshe Sharon holds that Lydda was "too Christian in ethos for the taste of the Umayyad rulers", particularly following the Arabization and Islamization reforms instituted by Abd al-Malik. According to al-Jahshiyari (d. 942), Sulayman sought a lasting reputation as a great builder following the example of his father and al-Walid, the respective founders of the Dome of the Rock and Great Mosque of Damascus. The construction of Ramla was his "way to immortality" and "his personal stamp on the landscape of Palestine", according to Luz. In choosing the site, Sulayman utilized the strategic advantages of Lydda's vicinity while avoiding the physical constraints of an already-established urban center.
The first structure Sulayman erected in Ramla was his palatial residence, which dually served as the seat of Palestine's administration (). At the center of the new city was a congregational mosque, later known as the White Mosque. It was not completed until the reign of Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz (). From early on, Ramla developed economically as a market town for the surrounding area's agricultural products, and as a center for dyeing, weaving and pottery. It was also home to many Muslim religious scholars. Sulayman built an aqueduct in the city called al-Barada, which transported water to Ramla from Tel Gezer, about to the southeast. Ramla superseded Lydda as the commercial center of Palestine. Many of Lydda's Christian, Samaritan and Jewish inhabitants were moved to the new city. Although the traditional accounts are in agreement that Lydda almost immediately fell into obscurity following the founding of Ramla, narratives vary about the extent of Sulayman's efforts to transfer Lydda's inhabitants to Ramla, some holding that he only demolished a church in Lydda and others that he demolished the city altogether. Al-Ya'qubi (d. 839) noted Sulayman razed the houses of Lydda's inhabitants to force their relocation to Ramla and punished those who resisted. In the words of al-Jahshiyari, Sulayman "founded the town of al-Ramla and its mosque and thus caused the ruin of Lod [Lydda]".
Jerusalem, located southeast of Ramla, remained the region's religious focal point. According to an 8th-century Arabic source, Sulayman ordered the construction of several public buildings there, including a bathhouse, at the same time that al-Walid was developing the Temple Mount (Haram al-Sharif). The bathhouse was used for ablution by Muslims worshipping at the Dome of the Rock. Sulayman is further credited by an anonymous 13th-century Syriac chronicler for building arches, mills and gardens in Jericho, but these were later destroyed by floods. He also maintained an agricultural tract near Qutayfa, in the environs of Damascus, that was called "al-Sulaymaniyya" after him.
Caliphate Accession In 714, al-Walid, encouraged or supported by al-Hajjaj, attempted to install his son Abd al-Aziz as his successor, voiding the arrangements set by Abd al-Malik, which made Sulayman heir apparent. According to the historian Umar ibn Shabba (d. 878), al-Walid offered Sulayman generous financial incentives to agree to the change, but he refused. Al-Walid, nonetheless, issued requests to his provincial governors to recognize Abd al-Aziz, but only received favorable responses from al-Hajjaj and Qutayba ibn Muslim, the governor of Khurasan and conqueror of Transoxiana. An adviser of al-Walid, Abbad ibn Ziyad, counseled the Caliph to pressure Sulayman by summoning him to the Caliph's court in Damascus, and then, after Sulayman stalled in his response, to mobilize his (select troops) and move against Sulayman in Ramla. Al-Walid died shortly after, on 24 February 715. Sulayman received the news at his estate in al-Sab' (Bayt Jibrin), and acceded to the caliphate unopposed.
Sulayman obtained oaths of allegiance in Ramla, and in Damascus during his only recorded visit to that city. He continued to govern from Palestine, where he "was much beloved", in the words of the historian Julius Wellhausen, instead of Damascus, the Umayyads' traditional administrative capital. The historian Reinhard Eisener asserted that the medieval "Syrian sources prove he obviously chose Jerusalem as his principal seat of government", while Wellhausen and the historian Hugh N. Kennedy held that he remained in Ramla.
Provincial politics