Haytham ibn Khalid

Lashkar Haytham ibn Khalid (Arabic: هيثم بن خالد) was the first Shirvanshah, or independent ruler of Shirvan, renouncing the suzerainty of the Abbasid Caliphate in 861 after the Anarchy at Samarra and beginning the rule of the Mazyadid or Yazidid dynasty.

He was the youngest son of Khalid ibn Yazid al-Shaybani and the grandson of Yazid ibn Mazyad al-Shaybani, both of whom had repeatedly served the Abbasid Caliphate as governors of Arminiya,^[1] a vast province encompassing most of the Transcaucasus, with Armenia, Iberia (Georgia) Albania (Azerbaijan).^[2] His elder brother Muhammad ibn Khalid al-Shaybani also served as governor of Arminiya. This succession of Shaybanid governors enabled them to become firmly entrenched in the region, especially in Shirvan, which came to be ruled directly by Haytham. He had another brother called Ali who was his father's designated successor for commanding the army.

Haytham soon adopted the Persian title "Shirvanshah", and after the murder of the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil in 861, Haytham and his heirs became de facto independent rulers of Shirvan.^[3] His other brother Yazid ibn Khalid was ruling as the "Layzanshah",^[4] thus starting the Persianization of the family of Yazidids.^[5] His early rule spent fighting Sarir, a Christian kingdom north to Shirvan.^[6] Nothing more is known about Haytham, except that he was at an unknown date succeeded by his son Muhammad I.

• Madelung, W. (1975). "The Minor Dynasties of Northern Iran". In Frye, Richard N. (ed.). The Cambridge History of Iran. Vol. 4: From the Arab Invasion to the Saljuqs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 198–249. ISBN 0-521-20093-8.
• Minorsky, Vladimir (1958). A History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th Centuries. Cambridge: W. Heffer & Sons, Ltd.
• Ter-Ghewondyan, Aram (1976) [1965]. The Arab Emirates in Bagratid Armenia. Translated by Garsoïan, Nina. Lisbon: Livraria Bertrand. OCLC 490638192.