Sulayman was a son of the
Abbasid caliph
al-Mansur () (whose
nickname was 'Abu Ja'far') and one of his wives,
Fatimah bint Muhammad al-Taymi, granddaughter of
Isa ibn Talha al-Taymi, who was the son of a leading companion of the Islamic prophet
Muhammad,
Talha ibn Ubaydallah. Sulayman's daughter
Abbasa was a wife of Caliph
Harun al-Rashid (), the son of Sulayman's brother, Caliph
al-Mahdi (). Under al-Mahdi's other son and immediate successor, Caliph
al-Hadi (), Sulayman led the
Hajj pilgrimage to
Mecca. During al-Rashid's reign, Sulayman led the Hajj in 793, and served as the caliph's governor in
Basra,
al-Jazira and
Syria. Sulayman was entrusted by al-Rashid's son and successor
al-Amin to secure the
oaths of allegiance to his caliphate from holdouts among the elite. Al-Amin, who was also related to Sulayman through his mother, reappointed Sulayman to govern Syria around 809–810 in response to unrest in
Damascus emanating from the theft of a prized crystal pitcher from the
Umayyad Mosque by the incumbent governor, Sulayman's nephew
Mansur ibn al-Mahdi. The outrage of the Damascenes prompted them to refuse prayer under Abbasid leadership. As governor of Syria, Sulayman was "a pillar of the 'Abbasid regime", according to the historian
Wilferd Madelung. During the
Fourth Fitna, the civil war which broke out in 811 over the succession dispute between al-Amin and his brother
al-Ma'mun, tribes and local magnates in many regions and cities in Syria expelled representatives of the Abbasids. In Damascus, remnants of the
Umayyad dynasty, which was toppled from the caliphate by the Abbasids in 750, and their sympathizers, led by
Abu al-Umaytir al-Sufyani, attacked Sulayman's in his residence, the palace of
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. In the run up to the revolt, Sulayman had imprisoned an Abbasid loyalist, the prominent
Qaysi chief
Ibn Bayhas al-Kilabi, in the same palace. Ibn Bayhas was an opponent of the Umayyads' mostly
Yamani backers, rivals of the Qays. Sulayman freed Ibn Bayhas during the Umayyads' attack and Ibn Bayhas helped him escape. The Qaysi chief escorted him through the
Hauran to Thaniyyat al-Uqab. From there, Sulayman made his way to
Kufa in Iraq. During their escape from Syria, the Abbasid troops were attacked and pillaged by the Damascene mobs. Upon his return to Iraq, Sulayman remained among the leading partisans of al-Amin, staying with him and his loyalist troops from the
al-abna faction as they barricaded in
Baghdad's
City of Peace as al-Ma'mun's general,
Tahir ibn al-Husayn, closed in on him. According to a narrative cited in the history of
al-Tabari (d. 937), Sulayman was among those approached by Tahir to persuade al-Amin to surrender to al-Ma'mun. ==References==