governor of Upper (southern) Egypt for the Muslim caliphate during the reign of ʿUthmān (644–656) and the cofounder, with the future caliph Muʿāwiyah I, of the first Muslim navy, which seized Cyprus (647–649), Rhodes, and Cos (Dodecanese Islands) and defeated a Byzantine fleet off Alexandria in 652. He shared in the direction of the Muslim fleet that defeated the Byzantine navy in the battle of Dhāt aṣ-Ṣawārī, off the Lycian coast, in 655.

As governor in Egypt, Ibn Abī Sarḥ attacked the Christian Nubian Kingdom in 651–652 and forced the Nubians to sue for peace. He was an enemy of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, who had conquered Egypt for the Umayyads and was governor of Lower Egypt.