A member of the Abbasid family, he was a son of Salih ibn Ali[1] and a first cousin of the first two Abbasid caliphs al-Saffah (r. 750–754) and al-Mansur (r. 754–775). During the reign of Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) he was appointed as governor of Egypt in 797. After an administration lasting slightly less than a year, he was dismissed from that province[2] and instead posted to Aleppo and Qinnasrin, which he proceeded to hold for an unspecified length of time.[3]