Faced with this crisis, Caliph Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik (r. 723–743) took drastic measures: Khurasan was separated from the purview of the governor of Iraq and raised to a separate province, under the Jaziran general Ashras ibn Abdallah al-Sulami.[8][9] Like his predecessor, Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri, Ashras tried to win over the loyalties of the local population and the native, non-Arab converts to Islam (mawali) by addressing some of their grievances on taxation.