Sulayman was from the region of Palestine, in the territory of Jund al-Urdunn, a military district of Syria.[1] The historian Moshe Gil speculates that he was from Tiberias, the administrative capital of Jund al-Urdunn.[1] He was an Arab of the Khushayn tribe, which formed part of the larger Quda'a confederation long resident in Syria.[2] His father, Sa'd, was a Christian and Sulayman too had possibly been a Christian.[2] A number of traditional Muslim historians name him as the son of "Sa'id, mawla of al-Husayn", but this is an error, likely originating from a typographical mistake in an earlier source.[3] According to the historian Martin Sprengling, Sulayman was well-versed in Arabic and Greek, as evidenced by the role he was assigned by Caliph Abd al-Malik as the katib (secretary) for official correspondence.[2]