Khalid al-Qasri

Khalid was born in Damascus. He was a member of the Tihamite Qasr clan, a subtribe of the Bajila, of which his great-grandfather Asad ibn Kurz al-Qasri is said by some traditions to have been the chief in the times of Muhammad, and is accounted as one of the Prophet's Companions. Other traditions, however, hostile to Khalid, report that Asad was a runaway Jewish slave. Khalid's grandfather Yazid was an early and prominent supporter of the Umayyads in the First Fitna, while Khalid's father Abdallah sided with Ibn al-Zubayr in the Second Fitna, but was eventually pardoned by the Caliph Abd al-Malik (). Khalid's mother was a Christian. Khalid possibly served as governor of Rayy in 702, but his first secure appointment is as governor of Mecca. == Governorship of Iraq ==

After his dismissal from Mecca, he is next mentioned as one of the two envoys sent by Caliph Yazid II () to the former governor of Iraq, Yazid ibn al-Muhallab, hoping to prevent his rebellion. When Khurasan was under his jurisdiction, he appointed his brother, Asad, to its governorship (725–727 and 734–738). In the event, however, this backfired: the Qaysis resented Khalid for his replacement of their champion, Ibn Hubayra, while the Yamanis themselves did not support him wholeheartedly, even though he staffed his administration with Yamanis; it was only his replacement in 738 with another Qaysi governor, Yusuf ibn Umar al-Thaqafi, that confirmed Khalid as a "Yamani" governor in the later tradition. Details of his long tenure are relatively unknown. With the exception of the suppression of a Kharijite revolt of Bahlul ibn Bishr al-Shaybani in the north and a Shi'ite extremist movement of al-Mughira ibn Sa'id in Kufa and of Wazir al-Sikhtiyani in al-Hirah in 737, his governorship seems to have been generally peaceful. He is also held responsible for the execution of al-Ja'd ibn Dirham, a "rather shadowy figure associated with a variety of religious doctrines". His governorship was also marked by the minting of high-quality coinage, by increasing, at the orders of Hisham, the weight of the silver dirham from six to seven daniqs. After his dismissal, this change was reverted. Khalid is also accused by some late anti-Umayyad traditions of having been ambivalent or even hostile towards Islam. These same late traditions presented him as a sceptic or an atheist (zindiq) and favourably disposed towards the non-Muslim groups, especially the Christians. it states that he was derisively called "Ibn al-Nasraniyya" on the account of his alleged maternal ties to Christians, and is said to have commented on Christianity's superiority to Islam, derided the huffaz, and to have built a church for his mother near the mosque at Kufa. == Dismissal and death ==

The reasons for Khalid's dismissal in 738 are obscure. Some sources suggest that Hisham became jealous of Khalid's wealth, but the real motive seems to have been Qaysi pressure to relieve him. Khalid certainly was taken by surprise by the arrival of his replacement, Yusuf ibn Umar. Yusuf immediately imprisoned Khalid and his sons, and tortured his predecessor to extract his wealth, a practice common during hand-overs of governorships at the time. After eighteen months, Khalid was released and went to Hisham's capital Rusafa and then to his native Damascus. However, after Hisham died in early 743, his successor al-Walid II () sold Khalid back to Yusuf ibn Umar for 50 million dirhams. Yusuf again tortured him until Khalid died, an act which further exacerbated the Qays–Yaman feud and led to the downfall of al-Walid II. Of Khalid's sons, Yazid became a partisan of Yazid III during the Third Fitna and was executed by Marwan II (), while Muhammad joined the Abbasid armies and served as governor of Mecca and Medina. == References ==