Abu Sulaym Faraj al-Khadim al-Turki, sometimes erroneously called Faraj ibn Sulaym, was an Abbasid court eunuch and official. In 787, Caliph Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) established a new province encompassing the borderlands (Thughūr) with the Byzantine Empire in Cilicia and Upper Mesopotamia. As part of this, he sent Faraj to rebuild and repopulate the city of Tarsus. Faraj first sent 3,000 Khurasanis to the city, followed by a thousand each from the Syrian districts of al-Massisa and Antioch. The troops arrived in June 788 and encamped outside the city until the reconstruction of its walls, and the erection of a mosque, were completed. Furthermore, he supervised the very first prisoner exchange with the Byzantines recorded by al-Mas'udi for Harun's reign, in 805, on the Lamos River. Far