Sa'id ibn Hamdan

[2] Despite the subsequent re-assertion of caliphal authority under al-Mu'tadid (r. 892–902), the family was able to retain and consolidate its influence in the area thanks to Sa'id's brother Husayn ibn Hamdan, who became a distinguished general in Abbasid service.

[1][3] Husayn rebelled in c. 915 after quarrelling with the vizier, and was executed in 918, but his brothers remained loyal to the Abbasid government and were entrusted with senior positions.

[4] In 931, following the conquest of the frontier emirate of Melitene by the Byzantines under John Kourkouas, Caliph al-Muqtadir (r. 908–932) appointed him governor of Mosul, with the task of recovering the city.

The local Byzantine garrison, composed of followers of the Armenian general Melias, panicked and massacred many of the inhabitants for fear of an uprising against them; they then destroyed as much of the city as they could and abandoned it.

[4] Through a Byzantine Greek slave concubine (an umm walad, freed after giving birth to her master's child), Sa'id was the father of the distinguished general and poet Abu Firas al-Hamdani.