Abu Hafs

Abu Hafs may refer to:

Abu Hafs Umar al-Iqritishi

Umar ibn Hafs ibn Shuayb ibn Isa al-Balluti, surnamed al-Ghaliz ("the Fat") and later al-Iqritishi ("the Cretan"), and usually known as Abu Hafs (أبو حفص, in Greek sources Ἀπόχαψις, Apohapsis), was a Muwallad corsair who was primarily active between 816 and 827. After an unsuccessful uprising in Cordova, Spain in 818 against Emir Al-Hakam I the city's Muladi Muslim inhabitants were exiled. Some settled in Fez (Morocco), while a second group, of almost 15,000 men plus women and children, headed for Alexandria in Egypt. With the intention of taking advantage of local unrest, the latter group of rebels selected Abu Hafs as their leader. As leader, Abu Hafs led the group which took control of Alexandria in 816.

After being forced to leave Alexandria, the rebel group set for the Byzantine island of Crete. Upon arriving, they landed at Cape Charax in the gulf of Messara. From there the group headed north under the leadership of Abu Hafs.

Abu Hafs and his group of adventurers seized Crete from the Byzantine Empire over the next few years, repelled a number of Byzantine recovery attempts and established an autonomous emirate in the island.

Abu Hafs ibn Amr

Abū Ḥafṣ ibn ʿAmr (Arabic: أبو حفص بن عمرو‎; Greek: Ἀπόχαψ, Apochaps) was the last Arab emir of Malatya (Melitene) before its reconquest by the Byzantine Empire in 934.

Abu Hafs was the grandson of the famous emir Umar ibn Abdallah al-Aqta (his name is also transcribed as Amr ibn Ubaydallah), who was the ruler of the city of Malatya from the 830s until his death at the Battle of Lalakaon in 863. Under Umar, Malatya had been one of the most important emirates on the border zone (thughur) between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Byzantine Empire, and Umar himself had been one of the most active Muslim leaders in the perennial raids and counter-raids that characterized the Arab–Byzantine wars. The disastrous defeat at Lalakaon, however, shattered Malatya's power, and signalled the beginning of a gradual Byzantine advance in the borderlands. Over the next few decades, the emirate's Paulician allies and their principality at Tephrike were defeated and annexed, and a string of fortresses, often manned by Armenians, occupied the hill country around the city. From 927 on, with their other frontiers secure, the Byzantines, under the leadership of general John Kourkouas, concentrated their resources against the Arabs. First attempts to capture Malatya in 927 and 928 failed, but Byzantine troops, based on the fortresses surrounding the city, repeatedly ravaged its countryside and cut it off from assistance.