Tarsus is a city in Cilicia, a region in southeastern Asia Minor (modern Turkey). The city came under Roman rule since 67 BC, and then passed on to the Byzantine Empire until the mid-7th century, when following the Muslim conquest of the Levant control was disputed with the nascent caliphate. During the conflicts between the Byzantines and the Umayyad Caliphate, the city lay in the disputed no-man's-land between the two empires and changed hands frequently, becoming deserted and ruined in the process. In 778/9 the Abbasids undertook the first attempt to restore the city as a base of operations against Byzantium, but the work was apparently not completed. It was not until 787/8 that the city was rebuilt and resettled by Faraj ibn Sulaym al-Khadim, on the orders of Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r.