Marwan I
The 9th-century historian Khalifa ibn Khayyat mentions that Raja was a "mawlā" (non-Arab, Muslim client or freedman) of the Kinda. Because of his family's residence in the Palestine or Jordan district of Syria, Raja is occasionally given the "nisba" (epithet) of "al-Filasṭīnī" ("the Palestinian") or "al-Urdunnī" ("the Jordanian"). The family likely hailed from or settled in an area inhabited by their Kindite tribal patrons, whose prominence in Syria had grown under Mu'awiya and further still under Caliph Marwan I ().