Mu'awiya ibn Hisham

Mu'awiya was a son of Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik and Umm al-Hakim, a daughter of Yahya ibn al-Hakam, an Umayyad statesman and brother of Hisham's paternal grandfather, Caliph Marwan I. Mu'awiya is known chiefly for his role in the Arab–Byzantine Wars, where he led many invasions against Byzantine Asia Minor. The first campaign he led was in summer 725, which was carried out in conjunction with a naval attack by Maymun ibn Mihran against Cyprus. According to Arab accounts, Mua'wiya's army reached as far as Dorylaion, capturing many prisoners and sacking several forts.[1][2] Mu'awiya is also recorded to have launched an expedition in 726, possibly in winter, but nothing specific is known of it. In 727, he led another expedition, alongside Abdallah al-Battal. Battal captured and razed Gangra first, and then their combined forces took the fortress of Ateous, and advanced on Nicaea. Despite a 40-day siege, however, they failed to capture it.[1][2] In 728 he led the southern expedition into Asia Minor, while his brother Sa'id ibn Hisham led the northern; neither appears to have been particularly successful.[3]

Muslim sources attribute to him the capture of the fortress of Charsianon in September/October 730, but Byzantine sources state that this was done by Mu'awiya's uncle, Maslama ibn Abd al-Malik. In the next year, his forces were reportedly unable to penetrate the frontier, while a secondary expedition by al-Battal was heavily defeated. In 732, Mu'awiya's expedition penetrated as far as Akroinon.[4] In 733, he led an expedition into Paphlagonia. He continued to lead expeditions over the next few years, but although they ranged deep into Asia Minor in search of plunder—one of his raiding parties reportedly reached Sardeis near the Aegean coast—no major town or fortress appears to have been captured.[2][5] In summer 737, he again led the southern expedition, but died, according to Theophanes the Confessor, by falling from his horse during a hunt.[2][6]

His son by a Berber concubine, Abd al-Rahman (731–788), escaped the fall of the Umayyad dynasty during the Abbasid Revolution to al-Andalus, where he founded the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba.[7]

• Blankinship, Khalid Yahya (1994). The End of the Jihâd State: The Reign of Hishām ibn ʻAbd al-Malik and the Collapse of the Umayyads. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. ISBN 978-0-7914-1827-7.
• Ṭāhā, ʻAbd al-Wāḥid (1998). The Muslim conquest and settlement of North Africa and Spain. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-00474-9.
• Lilie, Ralph-Johannes; Ludwig, Claudia; Pratsch, Thomas; Zielke, Beate (2000). Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit: 1. Abteilung (641–867), Band 2: Georgios (# 2183) – Leon (# 4270) (in German). Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. ISBN 978-3-11-016672-9.