Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab Background and character . Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab was an Arab official of the Banu Makhzoum , a clan of the Quraysh . Although exceptionally educated and remarkably competent and well - respected , Ubayd Allah was the grandson of a manumitted slave . That humble origin may have embarrassed him and left him with a sense of personal insecurity among the high - bloods that packed the Umayyad circles . Throughout his career , Ubayd Allah seemed to have been overly obsequious , a little too eager to please the whims of the well - born lords of Damascus , while simultaneously exhibiting and harsh and almost vicious disdain of those below him , particularly non - Arabs . Both those character traits would have significant consequences . Official in Egypt . In 724 , the Umayyad Caliph Hisham appointed Ubayd Allah as " sahib al - kharaj " , or head of taxation in Egypt . As Egyptian governors proved ineffective , Ubayd Allah became Hisham ' s point man and effective ruler of Egypt . Ubayd Allah secured the dismissal of Egyptian governor Al - Hurr ibn Yusuf in 727 , and again his successor Abd al - Malik ibn Rifa ' a al - Fahmi , after they challenged his administrative powers . To expand fiscal revenues , in 725 , Ubayd Allah raised the " kharaj " by an eighth and appointed Arab officials ( rather than local Egyptians ) as tax - collectors . This provoked a revolt by Egyptian Copts in 725 – 26 . Leaderless and disorganized , the Coptic revolt went nowhere and was quashed by the Arab authorities under the direction of Ubayd Allah , with quite some bloodshed . It became evident that the Arabs needed to expand their presence in Egypt . At Ubayd Allah ' s suggestion , in 726 , the Caliph Hisham began dispatching Arab regiments drawn from the Qaysid ( or ' Syrian ' ) tribes of northern Arabia , partly in order to get the more troublesome Qaysid regiments ( " junds " ) out of the vicinity of Damascus , partly to counterbalance the local Arab junds already in Fustat and Alexandria ( drawn from Kalbid or ' Yemenite ' stock of south Arabian tribes ) lest they be used as a power base for ambitious local nobles against the central Umayyad government . To prevent quarrels , the Qaysid junds , some 5 , 000 who arrived during the time of Ubayd Allah , were settled in the Eastern Hawf and forbidden from entering Fustat . Governor in Ifriqiya . In late 732 , Ubayda ibn Abd al - Rahman es - Solemi , governor of Ifriqiya had been swiftly dismissed by Caliph Hisham following a personal quarrel . The Kairouan government was placed in the temporary hands of the lieutenant - governor Oqba ibn Qudama and the " qadi " Abd Allah ibn Mogheir ibn Berda . In al - Andalus , Abd al - Malik ibn Qatan al - Fihri of the illustrious Fihrid clan , was acclaimed by the Andalusian Arabs as ruler after the death of wali Abd al - Rahman ibn Abd Allah al - Ghafiqi at the Battle of Tours in October 732 . Seeking to restore order in the west , in April 734 , the Umayyad Caliph Hisham appointed his old Egyptian hand Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab as governor of Kairouan , Ifriqiya , with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb ( North Africa west of Egypt ) and al - Andalus ( Iberian Peninsula ) . Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab found the westerly domains of the Caliphate in disorder and the treasury thin following the mismanagement and reverses of the preceding years . Over Andalusian opposition , Ubayd Allah dispatched Oqba ibn al - Hajjaj al - Saluli as his deputy in Córdoba ( al - Andalus ) , replacing the popular governor Abd al - Malik ibn Qatan al - Fihri . Around this time , Ubayd Allah appointed Omar ibn Abd Allah el - Moradi as his deputy in Tangier ( al - Udwa ) . Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab immediately set about dynamizing his fiscal resources by ordering new raids . In 734 , an expedition was set out against Byzantine - ruled Sicily ( the seventh in as many years ) , but it proved to be a failure . In 735 , Ubayd Allah dispatched an Ifriqiyan army under commander Habib ibn Abi Ubayda al - Fihri to conquer Sous and the southerly regions of Morocco , acquiring substantial booty to replenish the treasury and bringing the region within the Umayyad caliphate . In 735 , an amphibian Arab expedition was launched upon Provence , capturing Arles and Avignon and the lower Rhone valley . But the expeditionary force was expelled from Provence in 737 – 38 in a joint operation by Charles Martel of the Franks and Liutprand of the Lombards . In 740 , Ubayd Allah dispatched Habib ibn Abi Ubayda al - Fihri at the head of an Arab expedition across the water to Sicily in what was possibly the first attempt at a full - scale invasion of the island ( rather than a mere raid ) . Habib had a successful landing and laid a brief siege to Syracuse , securing its submission to tribute , before events in Africa forced them to break off the invasion . The Berber Revolt . In the late 730s , Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab had begun leaning more heavily on the Berbers under his jurisdiction to make up for the financial shortfalls . Contravening Islamic law and the 718 edicts of the Caliph Umar II , Ubayd Allah reinstated some of the extraordinary " dhimmi " taxation ( the " jizyah " and " kharaj " ) and slave - tributes on the Muslim Berber population , provoking immense opposition . Similar policies were implemented by his deputies Oqba ibn al - Saluli in al - Andalus and ( with particular zeal ) Omar ibn el - Moradi in Morocco . But Ubayd Allah went above and beyond his duties . Seeking to satisfy the luxurious tastes of the nobles of Damascus , Ubayd Allah sent his officials in the relentless pursuit of the highly - prized wool of unborn Merino lambs , seizing ( and destroying ) entire flocks - the livelihoods of many Berber communities - just to gather the handful he could dispatch back to Syria . Berber girls and women were also highly prized as concubines by Damascus lords . Ubayd Allah , eager to please as always , ordered them seized and kidnapped in great numbers , not stopping even at the wives and daughters of loyal Berber chieftains . Berber patience finally broke in 740 , in what became known as the Great Berber Revolt . It began with an uprising in Tangiers against Ubayd Allah ' s tax - collectors and raiders . Fired up by Sufri te ( Kharijite ) activists , the Berber tribes of western Morocco ( the Ghomara , Miknasa and Berghwata ) formed a coalition and acclaimed the Berber chieftain Maysara al - Matghari as ' caliph ' . Tangiers fell into the hands of the Berber rebels hands , and soon enough the entire length of Morocco , from the Straits down to the Sous . Ubayd Allah ' s own son , Ismail , then a governor in the Sous , was killed by the rebels . Ubayd Allah immediately dispatched orders to Habib ibn Abi Ubayda al - Fihri to break off the Sicilian invasion and return the Ifriqiyan army to Africa . In the meantime , he dispatched a vanguard cavalry force , composed of the aristocratic Arab elite of Kairouan under the command of Khalid ibn Abi Habib al - Fihri ( Habib ' s brother ? ) , to hold the line against the Berber rebels while awaiting the Sicilian expeditionary force . After a few skirmishes with the Arab vanguard in the outskirts of Tangiers , the Berber rebels decided to depose Maysara and reorganize their forces under the Zenata chieftain Khalid ibn Hamid al - Zanati . Khalid ordered an immediate attack and destroyed the Ifriqiyan vanguard at the Battle of the Nobles in October 740 , cutting down the cream of the Ifriqyan Arab nobility . The main Ifriqiyan force under Habib ibn Abi Ubayda arrived too late to prevent the massacre , and retreated to Tlemcen , which had in the meantime itself been raised to revolt by Sufri te activists . Governor Ubayd Allah ibn al - Habhab forwarded the report of the battle to Damascus and requested reinforcements . Caliph Hisham , shocked at the news , dismissed Ubayd Allah in February , 741 and began preparations to dispatch a large eastern Arab army under a new governor , Kulthum ibn Iyad al - Qasi to crush the Berber rebellion . The disgraced Ubayd Allah left Ifriqiya in April 741 , and returned to the east .