Maslama was the son of the Umayyad caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 724–743) and the latter's wife Umm Hakim, the daughter of Yahya ibn al-Hakam, a brother of Hisham's paternal grandfather Caliph Marwan I (r. 684–685). Umm Hakim, like her mother Zaynab bint Abd al-Rahman, was well known for her beauty, and her fondness for wine was the subject of contemporary poetic verses preserved in the Kitab al-aghani (Book of Songs) of Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (d. 967).[1] Maslama was married to Umm Salama bint Ya'qub ibn Salama, a member of the aristocratic Banu Makhzum clan and a fourth-generation descendant of al-Walid ibn al-Walid (brother of Khalid ibn al-Walid).[2] She later married the first Abbasid caliph as-Saffah (r. 750–754).[2]