Umar al-Aqta

Who is Umar al-Aqta?

‘Umar ibn ʿAbdallah ibn Marwan or ʿAmr ibn ʿUbaydallah ibn Marwan, surnamed al-Aqtaʿ, "the one-handed", and found as Amer or Ambros in Byzantine sources, was the semi-independent Arab emir of Malatya from the 830s until his death in the Battle of Lalakaon on September 3, 863. During this time, he was one of the greatest enemies of the Byzantine Empire on its eastern frontier, and became a prominent figure in later Arabic and Turkish epic literature.