'ABD ALLAH IBN SA'D IBN ABI SARH

died AD 656 governor of Upper (southern) Egypt for the Muslim caliphate during the reign of 'Uthman (644-656) and the cofounder, with the future caliph Mu'awiyah I, of the first Muslim navy, which seized Cyprus (647-649), Rhodes, and Cos (Dodecanese Islands) and defeated a Byzantine fleet off Alexandria in 652. He shared in the direction of the Muslim fleet that defeated the Byzantine navy in the battle of Dhat as-Sawari, off the Lycian coast, in 655. As governor in Egypt, Ibn Abi Sarh attacked the Christian Nubian Kingdom in 651-652 and forced the Nubians to sue for peace. He was an enemy of 'Amr ibn al-'As, who had conquered Egypt for the Umayyads and was governor of Lower Egypt.