Chaldean Catholic Archeparchy of Kirkuk-Sulaimaniya
The foundation of the Chaldean Catholic diocese of Kirkuk has been attributed to Yohannan VIII Hormizd, who was recognised by the Vatican as patriarchal administrator of the patriarch of Babylon in 1780 and, after five decades of disputes and confrontations, as patriarch in 1830. According to the Chaldean Catholic priest Joseph Tfinkdji, Yohannan Hormizd visited the town of Kirkuk in 1789 while travelling from Mosul to Baghdad, and converted its Church of the East community to Catholicism. He is said to have consecrated a Chaldean metropolitan for Kirkuk, Mar Abraham, who resided in Aïnqawa during his reign, and died between 1821 and 1824. The source for this assertion is not clear. Abraham is not mentioned by any other source, and as Yohannan Hormizd himself (then considered by the Vatican to be merely metropolitan of Mosul) is styled 'metropolitan of Kirkuk' in a colophon of 1798, the Kirkuk region would seem to have been part of the diocese of Mosul at this period.
Harthama ibn A'yan
Harthama was in Samarkand when al-Rashid died at Tus in March 809, and remained in the east after. Consequently he threw in his lot with al-Ma'mun (r. 813–833) in the civil war against al-Amin (r. 809–813), and was along with Tahir ibn Husayn one of the two commanders of al-Ma'mun's army during the crucial year-long siege of Baghdad in 812–813. During the siege he led the attack from the east while Tahir commanded from the west. In the final stage of the siege, Harthama tried unsuccessfully to secure the surrender and life of al-Amin, by sending a boat to ferry him over the Tigris. The boat, however, capsized, and al-Amin was captured and executed by Tahir's men.