Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Ballūṭī, ʿUmar b. ʿĪsā b. Shuʿayb al-Iqrīṭīshī (‘the Cretan’) (d. ca. 241/855), known as al-Ghalīẓ al-Buṭrūjī, was descended from Ḥafṣ al-Ballūṭ of Córdoba and founder of the Ḥafṣid dynasty of the island of Crete (r. 213–350/828–961). Abū Ḥafṣ was oneof a group of refugees who escaped when the Umayyad al-Ḥakam b. Hishām bloodily suppressed an uprising of the inhabitants of the Arrabal (Ar. rabaḍ, henceal-rabaḍiyyūn), a suburb of Córdoba, in Ramaḍān 202/March 817 (Ibn al-Abbār, 1/44–45; al-Maqarrī, 1/339; cf. al-Samʿānī, 1/200).

Even though the early sources do…