Yazid was succeeded, in 724 A.D., by his brother Hisham, surnamed Abu’l-Walid, the fourth son of Abd el-Malik to occupy the throne of Islam, who, having been appointed by his brother as his successor, took possession of the throne on the very day of his death.  Muhammed was replaced in Egypt by his cousin, Hassan ibn Yusuf, who only held office for three years, resigning voluntarily in the year 730 a.d., or 108 of the Hegira.  The Caliph Hisham replaced him by Hafs ibn Walid, who was deposed a year later, and in the year 109 of the Hegira the caliph appointed in his place Abd el-Malik ibn Rifa, who had already governed Egypt during the caliphate of Walid I. Hisham made many changes in the governorship of Egypt, and amid a succession of rulers appointed Handhala to the post.  He had already been governor of Egypt under Yazid II.  He administered the province for another six years, and, according to the Christian historians of the East, pursued the same course of intolerance and tyranny that he had adopted when he governed Egypt for the first time under Yazid.

The Caliph Hisham enjoined Handhala to be gentle with his subjects and to treat the Christians with kindness, but far from conforming with these wise and kindly intentions, he overwhelmed them with vexations and tyrannous acts.  He doubled the taxes by a general census, subjecting not only men but also their animals to an impost.  The receipts for the new duty had to be stamped with the impression of a lion, and every Christian found without one of these documents was deprived of one of his hands.

In the year 746 (a.h. 124), on being informed of these abuses, the caliph deprived him of the government of Egypt, and, giving him the administration of Mauritania, appointed as his successor Hafs ibn Walid, who, according to some accounts, had previously governed Egypt for sixteen years, and who had left pleasanter recollections behind him.  Hafs, however, now only held office for a year.

Nothing of political importance happened in Egypt under the long reign of Hisham, the only events noticed by the Christian historians being those which relate solely to their ecclesiastical history.  The 108th year of the Hegira saw the death of Alexander, the forty-third Koptic Patriarch of Alexandria.  Since the conquest of Egypt by Omar, for a period of about twenty-four years, the patriarchate had been in the hands of the Jacobites; all the bishops in Egypt belonged to that sect, and they had established Jacobite bishops even in Nubia, which they had converted to their religion.  The orthodox Christians elected Kosmas as their patriarch.  At that time the heretics had taken possession of all the churches in Egypt, and the patriarch only retained that of Mar-Saba, or the Holy Sabbath.  Kosmas, by his solicitations, obtained from Hisham an order to his financial administrator in Egypt, Abd Allah ibn es-Sakari, to see that all the churches were returned to the sect to which they belonged.