List of caliphal governors of Medina

Under Muhammad and the first three Rashidun caliphs, Medina acted as the capital of a rapidly increasing Muslim Empire, but its remoteness from the emerging power centers of Syria and Iraq eventually undermined its political importance.

These representatives remained in control of Medina until 660, when an army dispatched by the Umayyad Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan arrived at the city and forced Ali's governor to flee to Iraq.

Although Medina continued to retain its religious importance as one of the Holy Cities of Islam, it became something of a political backwater under the Umayyads and its old elites, the Ansar, were reduced to acting as a "pious opposition" to the new regime.

[7] Governors assigned to Medina during this period played no role in the Muslim conquests due to the lack of active military fronts near the Hijaz,[8] but they were occasionally forced to deal with internal challenges to Umayyad rule.

[47] In the ninth and tenth centuries the Hijaz was also affected by a general economic downturn and Medina began to be threatened by brigand raids, of which at least one was serious enough to prompt the central government to send an expedition to restore order.

[48] With the collapse of the Abbasids' political power in the early tenth century, the Ikhshidid ruler of Egypt Muhammad ibn Tughj al-Ikhshid was granted jurisdiction over Mecca and Medina by the caliph al-Radi in 935.