Ahmad ibn Isa al-Shaybani

In the 860s, exploiting the turmoil of the "Anarchy at Samarra", which paralysed the Abbasid Caliphate and encouraged separatism in the provinces, Isa had for a short time made himself master of a de facto independent bedouin state in Palestine.

Eventually he was compelled to leave Palestine and assume the governorship of Armenia, but unable to enforce his authority against the local princes, he abandoned the province in 878 and returned to his native Jazira (Upper Mesopotamia).

[4] Al-Mu'tadid's cousin and panegyrist, Ibn al-Mu'tazz, celebrated Ahmad's submission and claimed that he "contemplated crossing into Byzantine territory and becoming a Christian", but Marius Canard considers the latter doubtful.

[4][6] Taking advantage of the war between Ashot I's successor Smbat I and the Sajid Muhammad al-Afshin, Ahmad launched an invasion of the principality of Taron, capturing Sasun.

[4][7] Ahmad died in 898, and was succeeded by his son, Muhammad, who ruled briefly until, in the next year, al-Mu'tadid put an end to Shaybanid power and placed Diyar Bakr under his direct administration.

[8] As "rulers by usurpation" (ʿalā sabīl al-taghallub), Ahmad and his father are judged harshly by contemporary Muslim historians, but according to M. Canard, "in the disturbed period in which these Mesopotamian Arabs lived, they were no worse in their behaviour than the other soldiers of fortune of the Abbasid regime".