Al-Sari ibn al-Hakam ibn Yusuf al-Balkhi (died November 820) served twice as the Abbasid Caliphate's governor of Egypt. Of Khurasani origin, according to al-Kindi he was originally an unimportant member of the so-called abna’ al-dawla, the Khurasani troops that formed the mainstay of the Abbasid regime. He came to Egypt in 799 in the retinue of al-Layth ibn al-Fadl, and soon rose to a position of influence within the local abna’. The early years of the 9th century were a time of turmoil for Egypt, where the old-established elites of the original Arab settlers of Fustat losing power to the abna’ and their rivals, the Yemeni tribes of northern Egypt, grouped around Abd al-Aziz ibn al-Wazir al-Jarawi. Taking advantage of the collapse of Abbasid central authority due to the civil war between a