In 787, Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) established a new province encompassing the borderlands (Thughūr) with the Byzantine Empire in Cilicia and Upper Mesopotamia. As part of this, he sent Faraj to rebuild and repopulate the city of Tarsus.[3] Faraj first sent 3,000 Khurasanis to the city, followed by a thousand each from the Syrian districts of al-Massisa and Antioch. The troops arrived in June 788 and encamped outside the city until the reconstruction of its walls, and the erection of a mosque, were completed.[4][5] Furthermore, he supervised the very first prisoner exchange with the Byzantines recorded by al-Mas'udi for Harun's reign, in 805, on the Lamos River.[6] Faraj evidently played an important role in the Byzantine frontier, as he is attested as the collector of the tithe in the area during the last years of Harun al-Rashid, and is recorded as having restored the "palace of Sayhan" in the area, and as the owner of a house in Antioch.[7]