Abd al-Aziz ibn Shu'ayb

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Shuʿayb ibn ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī al-Ballūṭī (Arabic: عبد العزيز بن شعيب بن عمر القرطبي البلوطي), known as Kouroupas (Greek: Κουρουπᾶς) in the Byzantine sources, was the tenth and last emir of Crete, ruling from 949 to the Byzantine reconquest of the island in 961.

[1][2] By the Byzantine chroniclers he is chiefly called "Kouroupas", apparently from an Arabic surname al-Qurtubi, "from Cordoba", whence the family had originally come.

[3] At the head of a huge fleet and army, Nikephoros Phokas sailed in June or July 960, landed on the island, and defeated the initial Muslim resistance.

[3] In vain, the emir sent for aid to the Fatimids in Ifriqiya and the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain; the Muslim rulers sent envoys to him, but, impressed by the Byzantine might, they refrained from intervening.

The Byzantine sources report that the emperor considered making Abd al-Aziz a senator, but the latter refused to convert to Christianity.