Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi () was an Umayyad governor of Egypt from 721 to 724 and again 737 to 742, and subsequently governor of Ifriqiya from 742 to 745. Governor in Egypt Handhala ibn Safwan al-Kalbi arrived in Egypt around 720, in the company of his brother, Bishr ibn Safwan al-Kalbi, who had been appointed governor of Egypt by the Umayyad Caliph Yazid II. Hahdhala came as chief magistrate (al-Shurta). When Bishr was appointed to take up the government of Ifriqiya in Kairouan in 721, Handhala was designated his successor in Egypt. Handhala continued as governor of Egypt until 724, when the new caliph Hisham arose to the throne and appointed his own brother, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan as governor. After a series of failed Egyptian governors, Caliph Hisham decided to restore Handhala ibn Safwan as governor of Egypt in 737, replacing Abd al-Rahman ibn Khalid al-Fahmi. Governor in Ifriqiya In October, 741, in the course of the Great Berber Revolt in the Maghreb, the Ifriqiyan army, along with a Syrian force dispatched by the caliph, was destroyed by the Berbers at the Battle of Bagdoura. The governor Kulthum ibn Iyad al-Qasi perished in the field, his nephew and successor Balj ibn Bishr al-Qushayri was holed up with the remnant of the army in Spain, leaving the whole of Ifriqiya open to the advance of the Berber rebels. Not having any more forces at his disposal, the Umayyad Caliph Hisham quickly appointed Handhala ibn Safwan as governor of Ifriqiya, with supervisory authority over all the Maghreb (North Africa west of Egypt) and al-Andalus (Spain), and instructed him to take whatever forces he could gather to defend Ifriqiya and quash the Berber rebellion. Leaving Egypt in the hand of Hafs ibn al-Walid ibn Yusuf al-Hadrami, Handhala set out westwards in February 742, picking up additional forces from Barqa (Cyrenaica) and Tripoli (Tripolitana). He arrived in Kairouan around April, 742. The qadi of Ifriqiya, Abd al-Rahman ibn Oqba al-Ghaffari, had been managing the defense of Kairouan, and succeeded in fending off an attack by the Berber rebel army raised in southern Tunisia by the Sufrite leader Oqasha ibn Ayub al-Fezari. Handhala ibn Safwan arrived in Kairouan just as Oqasha was said to be mounting a new attack, in coordination with another large Berber army coming in from the west, led by Abd al-Wahid ibn Yazid al-Hawwari. The Berber rebel armies