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).
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.
[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.