At the time of Sulayman's appointment, the head of the tax administration in Syria was Sarjun ibn Mansur al-Rumi, a native Melkite Christian who served under caliphs Mu'awiya I (r. 661–680), Yazid I (r. 680–683), Mu'awiya II (r. 683–684) and Abd al-Malik's father, Marwan I (r. 684–685).[4] By dint of his experience and skill, Sarjun was kept in his post by Abd al-Malik for the majority of his reign.[5] The caliph appointed Sulayman to the department of official correspondence and maintained closer relations with Sulayman, whom he had handpicked at a young age, than the elderly Sarjun, whom he inherited from previous administrations.[3] Abd al-Malik had grown increasingly resentful of Sarjun's significant influence and perceived sense of indispensability and sought to dismiss him. According to the 9th-century Muslim historians al-Baladhuri and al-Mada'ini, when Abd al-Malik informed Sulayman of his dilemma with Sarjun, the former proposed to the caliph converting the language of the tax administration from Greek to Arabic.[6] Unlike his Syria-centered predecessors, Abd al-Malik had spent most of his life in Medina, where only Arabic was spoken, and was unfamiliar with other languages or with the Greek and Syrian officials who had dominated the administration in Syria since the Byzantine era.[7] Moreover, following his victory in the Second Muslim Civil War in 692, he embarked on a major centralization drive, which came with measures to unify the caliphate's widely varied tax systems.[8] Already in 697, the transition from Persian to Arabic in the Iraqi bureaucracy had been carried out by Salih ibn Abd al-Rahman under Abd al-Malik's governor al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf and possibly served as a model for Sulayman to emulate.[7] To cover the expenses of the transition, Sulayman requested and received a year's worth of the revenues of Jund al-Urdunn, totaling some 180,000 gold dinars.[2][9] The order had been kept secret from Sarjun and in less than a year Sulayman completed the transition in 700.[10][9] Though Sarjun and his clerks were consequently dismissed,[2] the Byzantine system was maintained and Greek-speaking officials with knowledge of Arabic were retained; the only major change was the language of the system.[11]