Taking advantage of the domestic turmoil of the Abbasid Caliphate, he created a semi-independent bedouin state in Palestine and southern Syria in ca. 867–870, before an Abbasid army forced him to exchange his domains with the governorship of Armenia and Diyar Bakr. In Armenia, he struggled to contain the rising power of the Christian princes, but after failing to suppress the revolt of one of his own subordinates, he abandoned the country and returned to his native Jazira.