X THE SIXTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-HAKIM

(A.H. 386-411 = A.D. 996-1021)

Al-Mansur Abu-ʿAli al-Hakim bi-amri-llah (“ ... ruling by God’s command”), commonly known as Al-Hakim, was only eleven years old when he was saluted as Khalif at Bilbays on Tuesday, the 23rd of Ramadan 386 (October, 996 A.D.). Next day he proceeded to Cairo with all the court. Before him went his father’s body in a litter borne on a camel, the two feet protruding. The young prince was clothed in a woollen shirt split up the front and adorned with buttons and button holes, and on his head was the jewelled turban which served as the official diadem; in his hand he bore a lance and a sword depended from his neck (Maqrizi ii. 285). He reached Cairo and entered the palace a little time before the hour of evening prayer, and the following night was occupied with the funeral of the deceased Khalif. Ibn an-Numan washed his late master’s body, which was then buried in a chamber of the palace beside the tomb of his predecessor, al-Moʿizz (Maqrizi loc. cit., Ibn Khallikan loc. cit.).

On Thursday morning the whole court attended early at the palace. A golden throne covered with cushions of cloth of gold was placed in the great portico which al-ʿAziz had constructed in 369. Al-Hakim started out from the palace on horseback wearing the jewelled turban. At his approach all the courtiers kissed the earth, and then walked at his side or before and behind until he reached the portico, where he dismounted and took his seat on the throne, the courtiers taking their places according to rank, and each in turn did homage. Barjawan, the white eunuch whom al-ʿAziz had appointed to act as Ustad or “tutor,” administered the oath, and the young Khalif was proclaimed with the title al-Hakim bi-amri-llah.

There is no doubt that al-ʿAziz, in appointing Barjawan as tutor intended him to act as regent until the young prince was old enough to assume the power himself, although Ibn ʿAmmar and the Qadi Muhammad b. Nuʿman were associated with him as guardians. But at this point Ibn ʿAmmar, the acknowledged leader of the Katama party in Cairo, seized the office of Wasita or chief minister, to which was united the office of sifara or secretary of state, ejecting Isa b. Nestorius, and assumed the title of Amin ad-Dawla or “the one trusted in the empire.” This was the first time that the term “empire” was employed in the Fatimid state and, as De Sacy points out (Druses i. cclxxxv.), its use shows the appearance of a new tendency. So far the Fatimids had been the leaders of a sect of which the Imam was supreme pontiff: circumstances had enabled the sect to establish a state, first in Ifrikiya, then in Egypt, but it retained, at least in theory, a quasi-religious character, and its professed duty was to maintain the divine right of the Mahdi and his descendants. It seems, however, that by this time there were some who had out-grown this sectarian point of view and desired the Fatimid state to pose frankly as a secular power. The Berber tribe of Katama appears to have been the centre of this change of view; they considered no doubt that they had been the conquerors of Ifrikiya and of Egypt, and by their conquest had established a Berber monarchy: why should the fruits of this conquest be laid at the feet of an Arab dynasty whose supernatural claims they no longer believed?—the Fatimid Khalifs had given no evidence of miraculous powers, but were evidently ordinary human beings whose kingdom had been secured by the ready credulity of their forefathers. Ibn ʿAmmar comes forward as the leader of what we may term the secular party, and his programme seems to have been to dispense with the religious claims of the Fatimids, and to treat Egypt and its subject provinces simply as a dawla or temporal kingdom. No doubt these views had been gathering force for some time past, and certainly al-ʿAziz had been more prominent as the secular ruler and had allowed the sectarian propaganda to drop into the background, but his death and the accession of a child Khalif offered exceptional opportunities for modifying the policy of the state. De Sacy suggests that Ibn ʿAmmar’s party was disposed to get rid of the young sovereign and to establish a purely Berber government, a suggestion which has every appearance of probability. With the disappearance of the divinely appointed Mahdi and the end of the Fatimid line the country would be set free from the peculiar religious views of the Ismaʿiliya, which were an actual barrier to the progress of the state and alienated from it the bulk of the subject population. It seems a very probable picture of the tendencies prevailing at the moment and rests upon rather more than simple conjecture, though it must be admitted that none of the native historians attach this deep significance to the introduction of the term dawla.

It is not necessary to suppose that Barjawan was a devout supporter of Ismaʿilian views, but he certainly was the decided opponent of Ibn ʿAmmar who had curtailed his power and thrust him into the background, leaving him to be no more than the private tutor of the young prince. By force of circumstances he was compelled to become the champion of the young Khalif, so that this first period of al-Hakim’s reign centres in Barjawan’s intrigues to get rid of Ibn ʿAmmar.

Very early in al-Hakim’s reign there came to Egypt as a refugee the eunuch Shakar, who had been a servant of the Buwayhid prince Adhad ad-Dawla, but who had been taken prisoner by the rival prince Sharif ad-Dawla, from whom he had escaped. He was a friend of Manjutakin, the governor of Syria, and Barjawan, having enlisted his support, used him as the medium of sending an appeal to Manjutakin to deliver him and the Khalif from the bondage in which they were kept by Ibn ʿAmmar. Manjutakin, who was naturally inclined to be a partisan of the Turks and the Turkish mercenaries whom al-ʿAziz had introduced into Egypt as a counterpoise against the influence of the Katama and other Berber tribes, readily espoused Barjawan’s faction and assembled troops preparatory to an advance upon Egypt. As soon as Ibn ʿAmmar heard of this he treated it as a revolt, and sent out an army under the command of Sulayman b. Jaʿfar b. Fallah, a Berber of the Katama tribe and one of his supporters to check the revolted Manjutakin. Thus the palace intrigue between Ibn ʿAmmar and Barjawan was fought out by their respective supporters in Syria.

Sulayman met Manjutakin either at Ascalon or Ramla, and there he inflicted a defeat upon the Turks in which Manjutakin himself was taken prisoner and sent captive to Egypt. He was well received by Ibn ʿAmmar, who wanted to see Berbers and Turks united in resistance to the established Khalifate, and perceived very clearly that his plans could not be successful unless he enlisted the sympathy of the Turkish faction which was very strong in Cairo.

After his victory over Manjutakin Sulayman was made governor of Syria and proceeded to Tiberias, sending his brother ʿAli to act as his deputy in Damascus. But the citizens of Damascus, always turbulent and independent, refused to accept ʿAli as governor or to allow him to enter the city until they received a threatening letter from Sulayman which thoroughly frightened them and put an end to their opposition. ʿAli entered Damascus in no pleasant mood, and made his irritation felt by turning his soldiers loose, so that many of the citizens were slain and some parts of the city burned, after which he withdrew and pitched camp outside. Not long afterwards Sulayman himself arrived and received the apologies and protestations of loyalty of the citizens and was pleased to express his pardon. It was his aim at this time to continue the policy of al-ʿAziz and to hold the sea coast as a check upon the Greeks, and thus had no desire to be embroiled with a city in his rear which he left to be dealt with at a more convenient time. The Syrian Tripoli was the most important coast town held by the Muslims, and this he now handed over to his brother ʿAli, dismissing the governor Jaysh, although he was a fellow Berber and a tribesman of the Katama, with the result that Jaysh went back to Egypt with a grievance and joined himself to Barjawan’s faction.

Barjawan’s intrigues had now so far succeeded that he had a strong following, and as most of Ibn ʿAmmar’s troops were absent in Syria it seemed a favourable moment to strike his rival. For some time there were street riots between Berbers and Turks, indeed, this seems to have been more or less the normal state of Cairo at the time, for in spite of the good treatment accorded to Manjutakin, the Turkish mercenaries were deeply jealous of the favour shown by Ibn ʿAmmar to his fellow Berbers. When Barjawan felt that the time was ripe he secretly distributed largess amongst the Turks, and they made an open attack upon Ibn ʿAmmar which compelled him to conceal himself and to retire from public life.

At Ibn ʿAmmar’s downfall, for this it actually was, Barjawan assumed the offices of Wasita and Sifara, thus becoming practically regent of the state, on 28 Ramadan 387, after Ibn ʿAmmar had held office for a little less than eleven months. He treated the fallen minister as a kind of usurper who had tried to make the Khalif a prisoner and celebrated his own accession, or rather restoration to office—for he had certainly acted as chief minister for the first few days of al-Hakim’s reign—as a vindication of the Khalif’s rights. He brought forth al-Hakim in public, had him again proclaimed Khalif, and displayed him as sovereign.

But it was in Syria that the two factions were really fighting out their quarrel, and Barjawan’s first act of policy was to write to the citizens of Damascus urging them to resist Sulayman, and assuring them of the support of the home government as the Katama faction had now fallen from power. Thus encouraged the people of Damascus pillaged Sulayman’s goods, slew many of his men at arms, and expelled him from the city.

Neither faction at Cairo was strong enough to proceed to extremities, and Barjawan had reason to dread the return of the Berber troops from Syria. For a while Ibn ʿAmmar was treated as a prisoner of state and confined to his house, but all his fiefs and sources of income were secured to him and, after an interval, he was allowed to go about as he pleased and to present himself at court.

In Syria a period of disorder followed the fall of Sulayman, and the Bedwin phylarch Mufarraj b. Daghtal b. Jarrah broke out in revolt, established his headquarters at Ramla, and made forays in the Bedwin fashion through the surrounding country. At the same time Tyre revolted under the leadership of a peasant named Olaka, and the Greeks, led by the Emperor Ducas, laid siege to Apamea. It seemed, therefore, that Barjawan’s success involved the practical loss of control over the Asiatic provinces. But though Barjawan had encouraged the turbulence of the Damascenes for his own purpose, and had thus got rid of Ibn ʿAmmar’s chief supporter Sulayman, he had no intention to lose hold of Syria permanently, and sent up Jaysh b. Samsama as governor: probably this appointment was Jaysh’s stipulated fee for assisting Barjawan. At the head of a large force Jaysh proceeded to Ramla where he found Sulayman whom he made prisoner and sent to Egypt. He then sent a detachment under Husayn b. ʿAbdullah against Tyre, and proceeded himself against Mufarraj.

At Husayn’s approach Olaka appealed for help to the Greek Emperor, and in response a fleet of Greek ships was sent to his assistance. These ships, however, were met off Tyre by an Egyptian fleet and defeated. The Tyrians, now thoroughly discouraged, made an unconditional surrender and Husayn entered their city, pillaged it, and sent Olaka a prisoner to Egypt where he was flayed and crucified.

Meanwhile Jaysh had been advancing against Mufarraj but, as he approached with so large an army, Mufarraj became frightened and fled. Jaysh did not pursue him but passed on to Damascus where the inhabitants received him with some anxiety, although in their recent revolt against Sulayman they had been acting with the approval and encouragement of Barjawan’s faction, and so in alliance with Jaysh. They remembered, however, that Jaysh was a Berber of the Katama, and that tribal prejudices were stronger than any temporary association in palace factions. As soon as Jaysh entered the city he made a reassuring speech to the people, and the citizens were fully convinced that he intended only friendly relations. At the moment he was most anxious to be free from any minor troubles with the cities of Syria in order that he might deal effectually with the Greek attempts upon the country which, for some years past, had been growing more serious. He proceeded therefore to Apamea, and before long joined issue with the Greek forces under Ducas, and received at their hands a severe defeat. Whilst the Muslims were in full flight and the Greeks were occupied in plundering their baggage, a young Kurd named Ahmad ibn ʿAbdu-l-Haqq, with a small band of followers of the tribe of Bashara advanced to where the Emperor stood surrounded by officers amongst whom was his son. The Emperor paid no attention to the Kurd, supposing him to be one of the defeated enemy coming to make formal surrender, but as Ahmad drew near he fell upon the Emperor with his sword and killed him instantly. At this the Greeks were thrown into confusion, the Muslims rallied, and the conflict closed with a victory for the Muslims.

Jaysh, thus unexpectedly the victor, proceeded to Antioch, but did not think it worth while to spend time in a siege without which it would have been impossible to enter the city, and so taking what booty and prisoners he could get in the neighbourhood, he went back to Damascus. He was now free to give vent to his long standing grudge against that city. Refusing all invitations to enter within its walls he pitched camp outside, but continued his friendly attitude towards the citizens, and frequently inviting the leaders of the local bands,—whether they should be called militia or brigands is dubious,—entertained them in his tent. On these occasions the guests feasted with Jaysh and then, instead of having water brought round to wash their hands, they used to be conducted to a separate room and washed there. This went on for some time, and then one day the door of the room where they had retired was closed, the guests were trapped and led out one by one to execution. As soon as the citizens heard of this they were thrown into great alarm. Next day Jaysh entered the city, executed as many leaders of the local bands as he could find, seized many of the prominent citizens and sent them prisoners to Egypt, and then pillaged their houses.

Thus Syria was brought to a condition of comparative order. Meanwhile Barjawan had sent forces to reduce Barqa and the African Tripoli, and thus the whole Fatimid Empire was brought to subjection. The Katami Fahl b. Ismaʿil was appointed governor of Tyre, the eunuch Yanas was put in charge of Barqa, and the eunuch Maysur was given the African Tripoli, whilst the frontier posts of Gaza and Asqalon were entrusted to the eunuch Yaman. But more important than any of these arrangements was Barjawan’s great achievement in sending an embassy to the Greek Emperor and concluding with him a truce for five years.

Although Barjawan remained for nearly three years regent of Egypt, Syria, North Africa, and the Hijaz, his position was far from secure. His danger came from an unexpected quarter; not from the Katama faction and Ibn ʿAmmar, but from the young Khalif who was beginning to resent Barjawan’s conduct as regent. According to one account the feeling was personal and largely due to Barjawan’s manner towards his ward, whom he seems to have treated with contempt and active dislike, applying to him the nick-name of “lizard.” For a long time al-Hakim nourished his resentment in secret and then, four days before the end of Rabiʿ II., in the year 390, he sent to him the message, “The little lizard has become a great dragon and wants you.” Much alarmed, Barjawan presented himself before the Khalif, and was slain by Abu l-Fadl Raydan, the bearer of the royal parasol, who stabbed him in the belly with a knife (cf. Ibn Khallikan, i. 53). Whatever measure of truth there is in this account it probably hits off some salient features in the way that a caricature sometimes gives a truer portrait than a photograph. Undoubtedly al-Hakim was quick to feel resentment, many proofs of this appear in his later life; and undoubtedly there was already something uncanny in his actions and manners, the symptoms in all probability of incipient insanity; and no doubt interested persons were busy in fanning the smouldering embers of resentment. Other accounts, reported by Nowairi and Bar Hebraeus, the former always a most weighty authority for this period, represent al-Hakim as chafing at Barjawan’s control, at his confinement to the precincts of the palace and at the prohibition against his riding abroad, the declared reason being the fear of assassination at the hands of the Katama partisans, which may have been not without good ground. According to these two historians the whole plot was due to the parasol bearer Raydan, who had become the Khalif’s confidant, Barjawan being occupied with matters of state and wasting no time with the youth who was the titular sovereign and who, it may be supposed, was a moody and unpleasing personage, and thus the parasol bearer was able to persuade his master that Barjawan was trying to emulate Kafur, and intended to make the Khalif a merely ornamental figure kept in the palace, and brought out from time to time to grace some state function. It lent colour to this, that Barjawan’s mode of life was strangely reminiscent of Kafur; after he had secured the command of the government he had gradually relaxed his attention to public business, until at last his life was spent entirely in pleasure, but he never attained the literary interests of the former negro ustad.

Nowairi tells us that al-Hakim, influenced by the suggestions of Raydan, had consulted Husayn, the son of the great general Jawhar, and that he frankly advised him to get rid of Barjawan. Although the minister no longer troubled to supervise the Khalif’s education, it was his custom to take him from time to time for a walk in the gardens which had been laid out by Kafur, the gardens of the Pearl Palace, as they were called. It was decided that some such occasion should be used to dispose of Barjawan, and so one day as he was thus walking with al-Hakim Raydan suddenly attacked him and drove a lance into his back, then al-Hakim’s servants crowding round cut off his head.

Barjawan’s assassination was followed by a riot. The people of Cairo were not insensible of the general security and peace which his rule had secured, and feared a return of disorder. But Nowairi tells us that the report went abroad that Ibn ʿAmmar had made an attempt on the Khalif’s life. This is likely enough, for Barjawan had constantly kept alive the idea that the Khalif lived in perpetual danger of Katama attacks. Other accounts attribute the riot to Barjawan’s popularity and to resentment at his murder and fear of resulting relaxation of the strong hand which had guided the country into ways of peace and prosperity. This riot was al-Hakim’s first lesson of the need of tact in dealing with his subjects. He was never lacking in personal courage, and on this occasion he went out to the people and declared, “I have been informed of an intrigue which Barjawan made against me, and for that I caused him to be executed. I beg you to take my part and not to be hard on me, for I am yet a child,” and he burst into tears. The “intrigue” thus referred to was no doubt the conspiracy which Raydan maintained that Barjawan had formed to treat the Khalif in the same way as Kafur had treated the later Ikhshid princes.

Although al-Hakim was now in the fifth year of his reign he had as yet taken no part in the government, which was of course the result of his tender years. It is obvious, however, that he had come under the influence of Barjawan and then of Raydan and Husayn, who had all endeavoured to develop his self-assertion for their own ends. As yet his personal character was quite unknown, and the expansion of his personality lies within the period following Barjawan’s assassination.

Thus the death of Barjawan marks the beginning of the second period of al-Hakim’s reign, during which he began to assert himself and to display his own character, although in this we see very distinct graduations which tend to produce marked differences of policy. The first phase covers the years 390-395, in which he shows marked peculiarities, and we note an increasing fanaticism in upholding Shiʿite views, but for the most part he is inclined to pleasure, and seems to have been popular. In 395-396 there comes a puritan reaction, associated with a time of distress and famine in Egypt, which becomes more pronounced as he has to meet revolt at home and hostile invasion from the west.

After Barjawan’s death al-Hakim chose Husayn, the son of Jawhar, as his chief minister, the same adviser whom he had consulted about Barjawan, and who had advised his murder. Husayn received the title of Qaʾid al-Quwwad, “general of generals,” or Commander-in-Chief, and a Christian named Fahd acted as his lieutenant. Fahl b. Tamim was made governor of Damascus but, as he died shortly afterwards, he was replaced by ʿAli b. Fallah. An order was made very early in this period forbidding any person to address the Khalif as “our lord” or “our master,” and requiring them to confine themselves to the simpler title “Commander of the Faithful,” and this order was enforced with the penalty of death.

Now al-Hakim, feeling himself free from restraint, began to show evidences of peculiarities which caused many of his day and many since to regard him as a person of disordered intellect. His first peculiarity was a preference for night over day. He began to hold meetings of the “council” by night, whether of the council of state or the religious assembly of the Ismaʿilian sect does not seem quite clear, he rode abroad in the city by night, and by his orders the streets were brightly illuminated, the shops opened, and business and pleasure followed by artificial light. The citizens vied with one another in hanging out lights and illuminating their houses to win the Khalif’s approval. This continued for about five years, during which al-Hakim seemed disposed to encourage every kind of pleasure, and every night saw both Cairo and the old city of Fustat refulgent with artificial illumination. In his conduct generally the Khalif was tolerant, as his predecessors had been, towards the Christians and Jews as well as towards the Muslims who did not embrace the peculiar tenets of the Shiʿa sect. His mother was a Christian. Towards his officials his conduct was generous, and he seems to have been distinctly popular. Thus, when Jaysh died in 390 his son went to Cairo with a paper on which his father had written his will and a detailed statement of all his property: all this, he declared, belonged to the Khalif his master; his children had no rights. The property thus valued was estimated at 200,000 pieces of gold. The son brought all this before the Khalif, but al-Hakim said, “I have read your father’s will and the statement of the money and goods of which he has disposed by his will: take it, and enjoy it in tranquility and for your happiness.” Indeed, all through his career the chief charge made against him was his reckless generosity, which often reduced the government to serious inconvenience: it was, indeed, a species of megalomania.

No doubt the nocturnal festivities of Cairo, well suited to the pleasure loving character of the Egyptians, led to many abuses, and so in 391 a strict order was issued forbidding women to go out of doors by night, and a little later this was followed by a general order prohibiting the opening of the shops by night (Maq. ii. 286). Al-Hakim himself continued his nocturnal tastes and nightly wanderings in the city until 393, when he entirely ceased riding about by night and forbade any person to be out after sunset.

In 393 al-Hakim began to show other curious developments in his conduct, the external signs, it would appear, of a growing disorder of the mind. We do not know what grounds Barjawan had for calling him a lizard; very possibly there was something furtive and uncanny in him even in his boyhood. In the early years following the death of Barjawan he seems to have been genial and generous, but all this changed in 393, when his character began to show a rigorous puritanism and signs of religious fanaticism, which indeed need be no sign of a disordered intellect, but which, suddenly developed, might very well accompany such a thing. It was in this year also that he began to be active as a mosque builder and as a generous benefactor of existing mosques, though this again is no evidence of disordered mentality. At the same time he became fanatical in his support of the peculiar tenets of the Shiʿite sect to which he belonged, and began to show great severities towards Christians and Jews, although in this last item he seems to have acted under the pressure of public opinion, which was very decidedly irritated by the favouritism which the Fatimids had so far shown to non-Muslims. But side by side with this sudden puritanism and fanaticism appeared a vein of capricious cruelty which has a very sinister bearing. Such cruelty begins to be prominent in 393 when many persons were put to death, some on religious grounds, others it would appear merely by a passing caprice of the Khalif. Amongst these was the Ustad Raydan, the royal parasol bearer who had counselled the murder of Barjawan.

In 394 the Chief Qadi Husayn b. Nuʿman was deprived of his office and replaced by ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz b. Muhammad b. Numan, who had been acting as Inspector of Complaints. In every Muslim country the Qadi who administers the sacred law is a person of very great importance, but under the Fatimids the Chief Qadi very often also held the office of Chief Daʿi or Supreme Missionary, as was the case with Husayn. If the two offices were held by different persons the Chief Daʿi ranked next after the Chief Qadi, and wore a similar official costume. It was the duty of the Chief Daʿi, who had under him twelve assistants as well as subordinate daʿis in the different provinces, to receive the conversions of those who joined the Ismaʿilian fraternity, and to deliver regular courses of instruction to those who were members, according to their grades in the society. His official income was derived from a fee of three and a half pieces of silver from each member. In earlier times, as we have seen, the daʿis were chosen from the most earnest proselytes, but at this period the office of Chief Daʿi was hereditary in the family of the B. ʿAbdu l-Kawi, and in them we may be disposed, perhaps, to recognise “the power behind the throne.” Still it does not seem that this hereditary right was treated as essential for the office, but only that it was usually regarded as giving a normal qualification.

The appointment of a new Chief Daʿi brings us to the period of al-Hakim’s puritanism. It was a time of great dissatisfaction. Even a people so habitually patient as the Egyptians were beginning to feel irritation at the expense involved in the nightly illuminations so long continued. A more serious cause of discontent was that which usually lies behind every disaffection in Egypt, a failure of the inundation of the Nile. For three years in succession the Nile flood had been exceptionally low, and so food was scarce and dear.

In 395, when a great number of people were executed, the ex-Qadi Husayn b. Nuʿman was put to death and his body burned. We note elsewhere the peculiar pro-Ismaʿilian legislation of 394 against various vegetables which were traditionally associated with persons who appeared in history as hostile to the house of ʿAli (cf. p. 141 below). At the same time a prohibition was issued against the slaying of oxen, other than those injured or diseased, save at the Feast of Sacrifice (Maq. ii. 286, Ibn Khallik. iii. 450), a prohibition perhaps connected with the scarcity due to the bad Niles.

We have already seen that strict laws against going out at night were made as the result, no doubt, of abuses arising from the nightly illuminations and merry-making. Now, in 395, more stringent regulations were made. It was enacted that no women were to appear in the street unveiled, and that no persons were to use the baths without wearing wrappers. In Jumada II. of this year, a general prohibition was issued against any persons going out of doors after sunset, so that the streets were deserted by night. In accordance with another law all vessels containing wine were seized, the vessels broken, and the wine poured out (Maq. ii. 286). Another law dealt with the dogs which roam about most eastern cities and who, in Muslim lands are savage because they lack human intercourse, for the religion of Islam has placed the dog and the pig apart as animals who are in all circumstances unclean, so that no one who has touched either of these is able to pray or eat without formal ablution. Now al-Hakim commenced a war of extermination against dogs, with the result that in Cairo many were slain and very few could be seen in the streets. Severus says that this rule was made because al-Hakim’s ass had taken fright at a dog barking at it: in strict accuracy the Khalif had not at this time adopted the custom of riding an ass, but this is a minor detail.

Stricter rules also were made excluding ordinary civilians from Kahira, from which it appears that the seclusion of the guarded city had been somewhat relaxed. In future no one was to be allowed to ride into it, but must dismount and proceed on foot, and all those who let out asses for hire were to be excluded from its precincts, whilst no one was to be allowed to pass in front of the royal palace even on foot.

We must now turn to consider conditions in Syria, for it is always impossible to understand Egyptian history unless the course of events in Syria is kept in view. At the time of Barjawan’s death Syria was under the governorship of Jaysh, but when he died in 390 it became necessary for al-Hakim to nominate a successor for this important post. He chose Fahl of the B. Tamim, but Fahl died after only a few months. The Khalif then appointed ʿAli b. Fallah of the Katama. In 392 the Hamdanid prince of Aleppo, Saʿid ad-Dawla, and his wife, were poisoned by his father-in-law Luʿluʿ, who desired to obtain the throne for himself. He did not seize the supreme power immediately, but proclaimed Saʿid’s two sons ʿAli and Sharif as joint rulers, retaining the real control in his own hands. This continued for two years, then in 394 he sent them together, with the whole of the harim of the Hamdanids to Cairo, and assumed to himself the office and title of Emir in conjunction with his son Mansur, and these two ruled as Emirs under the protection of the Fatimid Khalif until Luʿluʿ’s death in 399. Then Mansur became sole ruler under the title of Murtada l-Dawla which was conferred on him by al-Hakim, and he had the name of the Fatimid Khalif inserted in the Friday prayer and inscribed on the coinage so that by 399 Aleppo was fully admitted as a part of the Fatimid empire, having been a protected district for the previous five years, before which it had for forty years been included in the Byzantine Empire.

The first evidence of al-Hakim’s strong religious interest appears in his diligence as a builder of mosques, and in the completion or adornment of those already erected.

A mosque near the Bab al-Futuh, the second congregational mosque of Kahira, had been commenced by al-ʿAziz and the Wazir Ibn Killis in 380, and was sufficiently advanced to allow the Friday prayers to be held there in 381. In 394 al-Hakim added the minarets and the decorations so that Maqrizi describes him as reconstructing the building. The work was not completed until 404. At first known as the “New Mosque” or as al-Anwar “the brilliant,” it afterwards generally bore the name of Hakim’s Mosque. Desecrated by the Crusaders, severely injured by an earthquake in 703, it was in a semi-ruinous condition by fire and neglect with its roof falling to pieces when Maqrizi wrote his description of it about A.H. 823 (= A.D. 1420. Cf. Maqrizi ii. 277, sqq.). After even worse decay in later days it was temporarily converted in recent times to a museum of Arabic art, the collection being removed to its present quarters in 1903. The mosque is now abandoned and in ruins. Its general plan follows that of the mosque of Ibn Tulun, a square courtyard surrounded with arcades, the centre open to the sky. A considerable part of the east liwan remains, with a few fragments of the north liwan, of the other two sides only portions of the exterior walls survive. Two towers can be seen standing at the ends of the west wall, but the open-work minarets which crown these towers are additions made some three centuries later and alien to the style prevailing in the time of the Fatimids.

In the year 393 al-Hakim also began to rebuild the mosque in the district of Rashida to the south of Kataiʿ near the Mukattam hills, on a ground where a Christian church had once stood. The mosque had been built of brick; this al-Hakim destroyed and reconstructed on a larger scale and of more imposing appearance. It was known as the mosque of Rashida from its position, the ground being so called after a person of that name who had once been its owner. This mosque was commenced in Rabiʿ I. 393, and the position of the mihrab was carefully adjusted by the astronomer ʿAli b. Yunus. Two years later the Khalif made this mosque a present of carpets, curtains, and lamps.

Besides this building al-Hakim made many gifts to various mosques, especially to those he purchased for the special purposes of the Shiʿite sect, presenting them with copies of the Qurʾan, silver lamps, curtains, Samanide mats, etc.

The earlier Fatimids in North Africa present rather a brutal appearance and, so far as we can see, their one ideal was the establishment of political power. But that was not the original character of the movement which had distinct intellectual tendencies, and to this earlier type al-Moʿizz had reverted. Since the dynasty had been established in Egypt the humane side had been more prominently in evidence, and especially in the encouragement of medicine and natural science. The Khalif al-Moʿizz employed the Jewish physician Musa b. al-Ghazzan and his two sons Ishaq and Ismaʿil: these were not only eminent practitioners but Musa was distinguished as a writer on the pharmacopoeia, and all three were regarded as leading authorities on medicine. Another distinguished physician was the Christian Eutychius or Saʿid b. Batriq, patriarch of the Malkite church of Alexandria who died in 328 (= A.D. 943), the author of a history of which an edition in Arabic and Latin was published at Oxford in 1654.

Al-Hakim himself was anxious to encourage scholarship in accordance with the traditions of the sect of which he was the head. The mosque of al-ʾAzhar had been especially devoted to the learned by his father, and now in Jumada II. 395 he founded an academy on the lines of similar institutions already existing at Baghdad and elsewhere. This new foundation was named the Dar al-Hikma or “house of wisdom.” To it were attached a number of professors, both of the traditional sciences and Qurʾan and canon law, and also of the natural sciences. A library was connected with it and was filled with books transferred from the royal palace near by. All who came to it were supplied with ink, pens, paper, and rests for books.

It seems probable that the intellectual efforts of the Fatimids should be connected with the Ikhwanu s-Safa, “the brotherhood of purity” and with the Assassins. The former began as a kind of masonic society at Basra soon after the capture of Baghdad by the Buwayhids in 334. Undoubtedly it had some connection with the sect established by ʿAbdullah the son of Maymun, but it is not possible to specify accurately what that connection was. It may have been a more cultured off-shoot, just as the Qarmatians were a cruder branch; but the more probable explanation is that it was a descendant of the movement which produced ʿAbdullah, but free from the Shiʿite elements which he inherited from the sect founded by his father Maymun. To a large extent it seems that the “Brotherhood” displayed the true principles adopted by the Ismaʿilians free from the Shiʿite ideas and free from the political opportunism which marked the development of the Fatimids in Africa and Egypt. To the Assassins we shall have occasion to return at a later stage. The “Brethren of purity” were disposed in four grades, the highest of which was composed of those who desired the union of their souls with the world-spirit, so that their final doctrine was a species of pantheism. They were a body of religious and ethical reformers, a purified and gentle society, at the opposite pole to the fierce Qarmatians. On the literary side they are best known as the producers of the fifty-one “Epistles of the Brethren of Purity,” an encyclopaedia of philosophy and science as known in the Arabic speaking world of the fourth century. These “Epistles” were edited and translated by Prof. Dieterici between 1858 and 1879, and show a general scheme of education in grammar, theology, philosophy, and physics, the latter including mineralogy, chemistry, botany, and zoology. It is in no sense an original work, but simply an encyclopaedic compilation of all the material then available.

The whole Fatimid movement took place in an atmosphere saturated with Hellenistic thought, and the revived study of the Greek material was the direct inspiration both of the Ismaʿilian sect as organised by ʿAbdullah and of the “Brethren.” But the influence of these latter was checked by the strong tendency towards reaction in Muslim theology and thought generally which was gathering even in the fourth century in Asiatic Islam. The future of the philosophers lay in the far west: Ibn Sina (d. 428) was the last of the Muslim philosophers in the east, and he was associated with Shiʿite circles, whilst al-Farabi had lived under the shelter of the Shiʿite Hamdanids, and the “Brethren” flourished under the Buwayhids who also were Shiʿites. For the most part the study of Greek philosophy, therefore, progressed under Shiʿite influences.

The “House of Wisdom” continued until 513 when the reactionary wave of orthodoxy had reached even Fatimid Egypt, and in that year it was closed as a home of heresy by the Wazir Afdal. Four years later a new academy near the great palace was founded by the Wazir Maʾmun, but this adhered more strictly to the traditional lines of Muslim study.

In the line of philosophers strictly so-called, that is to say, of those who worked from the basis of Greek science, one is associated with al-Hakim and the Cairo of the Fatimids, namely, Ibn al-Haytsam, known to the mediaeval Latin writers as Alhazen. He was born at Basra in 354, and became distinguished as a student of the Greek philosophers. At that time the path of philosophy was beset with many difficulties owing to the orthodox reaction.

Ibn Sina was a wanderer in many lands, and Ibn al-Haytsam found it more prudent to seek a refuge in Cairo where he made his home amongst the learned of the al-ʾAzhar mosque. He died in 430. We have a long list of the works he produced, all of the type usually associated with the Arabic philosophers, manuals, commentaries, and discussions of questions arising from the teaching of the ancients. In his case these deal chiefly with mathematics, physics, the Aristotelian logic, and the medical works of Galen. The Bodleian contains a MS. of his commentary on Euclid. To the mediaeval west he was best known as the author of a treatise on optics which was translated into Latin and used by Roger Bacon. Occasionally this optical work of “Alhazen” appears in the curricula of the mediaeval universities.

Various evidences of a fanatical spirit in maintaining the doctrines and usages of Shiʿism begin to appear in al-Hakim about 393. In Syria a person was arrested on the charge that he denied that any special devotion was due to ʿAli. The offender was imprisoned by the authority of the Chief Qadi of Egypt who acted as pope over all the territories subject to Fatimid rule, and was examined by four jurists who did their best to persuade him to recognise the Imamate of ʿAli, but, as he remained stubborn, he was beheaded.

In Cairo thirteen persons were arrested for having observed the Salat ad-Duha or “mid-morning prayer,” one of the voluntary observances sometimes added to the five canonical daily prayers, but disapproved by the Shiʿites. The offenders were paraded through the streets, beaten, and detained three days in prison.

In the month of Rabiʿ II. of this same year (393) a man named Aswad Hakami was punished for some offence of which the details are unknown, but which probably was a public championship of the three first Khalifs whom the Shiʿites regarded as usurpers. He was paraded through the city and a herald cried before him: “This is the reward of those who are the partisans of Abu Bakr, and Umar,” after which he was beheaded (As-Suyuti, History, chap. I., Qadir bi-llah).

In 395 al-Hakim re-enforced many old laws against Christians and Jews, and the decrees ordering the strict observance of these penal regulations contained many abusive expressions against Abu Bakr and Umar. A new decree of 395 forbade the use of malukhiya or “Jews’ mallow” as food because it was traditionally stated to have been a favourite article of Muʿawiya the opponent of ʿAli. Similarly the use of jirjir (girgir) or “watercress” was forbidden because it had been introduced by ʿAyesha: and of mutawakkiliya, a herb named after the ʿAbbasid Khalif Mutawakkil. The sale or making of beer (fuqqaʿ) was severely prohibited because it was especially disliked by ʿAli: it was forbidden to use dalinas, a species of small shell fish, for some reason not known: and very strict orders were made against the sale or use of any fish which had no scales.

In the same year a law was published that the noon prayer was to be said at the seventh hour and the afternoon prayer at the ninth, that is to say the modern way of counting the correct hours was to be observed instead of the traditional method of observing the sun. In these cases tradition allowed the noon prayer to be said as soon as the sun is actually seen to begin its decline from the meridian (Bukhari: Sahih ix. 11), and the afternoon prayer after it has declined (id. 13, 13A). Orthodox Islam allows the former at any time between noon and the hour when the shadow of a thing is equal to the thing itself in length, and the latter at any time between the moment of equal shadow and the sunset (cf. id.). The Fatimid Khalif now replaced these very primitive methods of reckoning, which are still in force, by the observance of fixed hours as marked by the dial.

In the month of Safar of 395 al-Hakim caused inscriptions cursing the three first Khalifs, the “usurpers,” and certain others such as Talha, Zubayr, Muʿawiya, and Amru, all regarded as enemies by the Shiʿites, to be written up on the doors of the mosques and of shops, and on the guard houses and in the cemeteries, and compelled the people to display similar inscriptions in gold lettering and bright colours (cf. Maq. ii. 286, As-Suyuti: al-Qaʾim. Ibn Khall. iii. 450). These were extremely offensive to the Sunnis or orthodox who formed the large majority of the people, indeed at the present day the attitude to be observed towards the first three Khalifs is the sorest point of difference between the Sunnis and Shiʿites, and even in recent years more than one Shiʿite has risked death for the sake of spitting on the tomb of ʿUmar. At the same time efforts were made to induce citizens to join the Ismaʿilian sect, and two days were set apart every week for the admission of those who desired to be initiated. On some of these occasions the crowds were so large that several people were crushed to death (Maq. ii. 286).

Those who were keen Shiʿites naturally were encouraged by this legislation to become somewhat aggressive in their attitude. When the caravan of African, that is to say Moroccan and Tunisian, pilgrims on their way home from Mecca passed through Egypt and rested at Cairo, some of the more ardent Shiʿites tried to induce them to utter curses against ʿUmar and the other early Khalifs, and the refusal of the pilgrims to do so led to some disturbances.

At the beginning of the year 396 the usual Shiʿite feast of the Ashura commemorating the martyrdom of ʿAli and his sons, a regular occasion for an outbreak of Shiʿite fanaticism at the present day, was duly celebrated on the first ten days of Muharram. This time the offensive attitude of the Shiʿites caused a good deal of annoyance, and one man was arrested for shouting: “Such be the recompense of those who curse ʿAyesha and her husband.” For this he was beheaded.

In 393 al-Hakim commenced the strict observance of the old laws, now long obsolete, against the Christians and Jews. We are left in no doubt as to the reason why these ancient penal laws were revived and strictly enforced. Maqrizi tells us that it was due to the arrogance and wealth of those Christians and Jews who had been unduly favoured by the Fatimids. The greater part of the civil service was filled by them, and some Christians, such as ʿIsa b. Nestorius and Fahd b. Ibrahim, were then acting as ministers of state. To a large extent we may ascribe al-Hakim’s treatment of Christians and Jews as due to the pressure of public opinion, and it is rather interesting to observe how such opinion was brought to bear upon a mediaeval Khalif.

One day as al-Hakim was riding through the streets he was confronted by a female guy made of paper bearing in her outstretched hand a document which Hakim took, and read: “In the name of him who has honoured the Jews in Manasseh, and the Christians in ʿIsa b. Nestorius, and has dishonoured the Muslims in himself, deliver us from the evil state we are in, in good time” (Abu l-Feda, Annal. Mosl. ii. 591).

Hakim’s first step was to endeavour to bring pressure to bear upon his chief officials in order that by getting them to profess Islam he might remove the objection felt towards them. One of these was Fahd b. Ibrahim, a Christian who had been raʾis or lieutenant under the commander-in-chief Husayn b. Jawhar since 389. He, however, proved stubborn in his adherence to the Christian religion and so was beheaded and his body burned, an act of severity which was not justified by Muslim law. As soon as the execution was over Hakim sent for Fahd’s children, assured them of his protection, and forbade any one to do them harm. Fahd was succeeded in his office by the Muslim ʿAli b. ʿUmar al-ʿAddas. Hakim then made a similar attempt to convert ʿIsa b. Nestorius and with similar result, so ʿIsa also was beheaded. Bar Hebraeus puts this event in the period 386-389, but as Maqrizi mentions it just before his reference to the execution of Fahd it is more probably dated 393.

Al-Hakim had ten of the chief Christian clerks, including Fahd, arrested. The first of these to be brought before him was Abu Najah, who was a member of the Greek Church. Hakim urged him to become a Muslim, and promised him rapid promotion and immediate rewards if he would do so. Abu Najah asked that he might be allowed a day’s delay, and this was granted him. He then went home and, gathering together his kinsmen and friends, told them what had taken place, and assured them that he had asked for this delay, not because he was in any doubt as to what he would do, but in order to meet them and exhort them to remain steadfast in their faith in the persecution which he fore-saw was about to fall upon the church. He then entertained them all to a feast and next day presented himself before the Khalif. Al-Hakim asked him if he had made his choice: he replied that he had done so:—“And what is your intention?”—“It is to remain firm in my religion.” Al-Hakim then tried promises and threats, but without result. He then had him stripped and scourged until he had received five hundred stripes, so that his flesh was torn and the blood flowed freely. As the torturers stopped al-Hakim ordered them to continue until the sufferer had received a thousand lashes. After three hundred more Abu Najah cried out that he was in thirst and, as this was reported to al-Hakim he ordered one of the men to give him a drink of water. But when the water was offered Abu Najah said: “Take away his water. I have no need of it, because Jesus Christ the true King has given me to drink,” and then he died. When this was reported to Hakim he ordered the thousand strokes to be completed on the dead body.

Of the other eight clerks remaining after Fahd and Abu Najah, four remained firm and were executed, and four turned Muslim. Of these latter one died during the night after making his profession of faith, the other three remained conforming Muslims until the penal laws were relaxed in the latter part of Hakim’s reign when they returned to the Christian Church, the Khalif protecting them from the legal penalties to which this exposed them.

Towards the end of 394 Hakim began collecting a large store of wood on Mokattam, and this was completed in Rabiʿ I. 395. A rumour went abroad that this was intended to provide a general holocaust of non-Muslim clerks and civil officials, and a panic took place amongst the Christians. On the 5th of that month a large number of clerks assembled at the ar-Riahin and went in procession through the streets with lamentations and cries for mercy, and finally assembled before the palace imploring the Khalif’s mercy. At the palace they were met by the Commander-in-Chief, Husayn b. Jawhar, who undertook to present their petition to the Khalif. Next day they returned and Husayn gave them letters of protection written out in three forms, one for Muslims, another for Christians, and another for Jews (cf. Maq. i. 286, sq.). Although it was the clerks employed in the public service who were chiefly concerned in this, there were also merchants and private citizens who had dealings with the court who joined in the appeal and received letters of protection. Maqrizi has preserved a specimen of these letters from which we gather that they were by way of licences of toleration granted, in the case of Muslims, to those who had not become members of the Fatimite sect. The example he gives reads: “In the name of God, etc. This letter is from the servant of God and his wali Mansur Abu ʿAli the Imam Hakim bi-amrillahi, Commander of the faithful, to the people of the mosque of ʿAbdullah: You are amongst those who are in safety with the security of God, the King, the evident Truth, and with the security of our ancestor Muhammad, the seal of the prophets, and of our father ʿAli the best of his heirs, and of the line of the prophets, and of the people of the Mahdi our ancestor, may God be gracious to the Apostle and his envoy, and to all others of them; and the security of the Commander of the faithful is upon you yourselves, upon your kindred and property. Do not fear for yourselves, let no hand be raised against you save for the punishment of wrong-doing, or for a claim made and proved. Confidence must be given to this, and one must count on the accurate fulfilment of what is above, God willing. Written in the month of Jumada II. 395. Praise be to God, may he be gracious to Muhammad the chief of the apostles, to ʿAli the best of his successors, and to the Imams of the house of the Mahdi, kinsmen of the prophet, and may abundant peace be upon them” (Maq. i. 286). We note that Muhammad is described as “the seal of the prophets” quite in the orthodox way which gives no indication of the Fatimite teaching of a subsequent prophet of greater importance in Abdullah b. Maymun. The general tone is distinctly Shiʿite, but Fatimid only in the reference to the family of the Mahdi.

Was there any basis to the rumour that a general holocaust was intended? Such a thing seems almost incredible, but there are certain signs which point in its favour. Soon after the appeal made to the Khalif in Rabiʿ I. he made a huge bonfire of all the wood collected, and for this there was no obvious purpose, and it is certain that he had developed a tendency to use burning as a form of punishment. We are not prepared to say, therefore, that the rumours circulated about the store of wood on Mokattam were entirely baseless.

Al-Hakim was particularly severe upon the inferior servants of the court, and especially on the runners or footmen, many of whom were put to death whilst others obtained letters of protection. This may have been an instance of religious intolerance, or simply a case of the capricious cruelty which now began to appear in Hakim’s conduct and contributed so much to the theory that he was suffering from a disordered mind.

In 395 the old penal laws dating from the year 36 were re-enforced against Christians and Jews. Both were required to wear a distinctive dress, the Christians to have turbans of black or dark blue, a custom which the Christians seem to have adopted voluntarily in the first place, and which the Coptic clergy retain to the present day, the Jews to wear yellow turbans: the women of both religions were forbidden to wear the waist sash which was a characteristic part of female attire, and the men were required to adopt it. At the same time it was forbidden to sell slaves to Christians or Jews.

The citizens of Fustat, sorely tried by the scarcity and dearness of food resulting from the bad Niles, groaned in secret over the caprices and severities of their ruler, but did not yet venture to express their dissatisfaction openly. It was otherwise with the free Arab tribes settled in the country, and in 395 the B. Qorra in Lower Egypt broke out in open rebellion. Al-Hakim had no great trouble in punishing these rebels but his severity in doing so, although it checked the movement, only left them ready to take up arms again on a more promising opportunity, and for this they had not long to wait.

A serious revolt took place in North Africa in 396, which before long seemed to threaten the very existence of the Fatimid Khalifate. In its first inception this revolt connected with far off Spain. There the Umayyads had been reigning since 138, but were now in their decline. The supreme power at this time had passed into the hands of the Wazir Mansur ibn Abi ʿAmir, who treated the Khalif of Cordova very much in the same way as Kafur had treated the later Ikhshids, but, more cruel and unscrupulous, was steadily getting rid of every one who stood in the way of his ambition. Many of the Umayyad kindred were put to death, whilst others left the country. Amongst these latter was one commonly known as Abu Raqwa, “the man with the leather bottle,” because he carried a bottle like that used by the travelling darwishes. As a darwish he journeyed to Egypt, thence to Mecca, Yemen, and Syria, everywhere observing the possibilities of forming a party to support the claims of the Umayyad family and the evidences of discontent and probabilities of stirring up civil strife. In all his wanderings, however, he met with no success: the Umayyads had long passed out of the main current of Islamic life, and it did not seem that their name could anywhere be used as a rallying cry for the dissatisfied; there was no religious attachment to the Umayyads like there was to the ʿAlids. At last he came back to Egypt at the time when the B. Qorra were smarting under the severe chastisement they had received from Hakim, and this seemed to him to offer some promise. Passing westwards he took refuge amongst the Berber tribe of Zanata where he obtained great esteem for his piety, acting as Imam in the services of the mosque and teaching the Qurʾan to the children. It is perhaps as well to note that “Imam” in this connection means no more than customary leader in prayer; it has nothing in common with the “Imam” as understood by the Shiʿites, save that both imply the general idea of religious teacher. At length he managed to get a following, and proclaimed himself as Emir under the title of “he who is sent by the order of God” and “he who has victory over the enemies of God,” both titles common enough amongst the Shiʿites but strange as applied to an Umayyad. His supporters were chiefly drawn from the Zanata, but before long he was joined also by other Berber tribes and by the B. Qorra.

At the head of a considerable army of the usual undisciplined Berber type Abu Raqwa advanced eastwards and took Barqa where he was careful to prevent all pillage and violence, and thus proclaimed that he was not a mere leader of tribes on the war path, but aimed at establishing an orderly government. At the fall of Barqa Hakim saw that the rebellion had to be taken seriously, and sent out an army under the command of Inal. This Egyptian force had to cross a considerable stretch of desert before it could reach Barqa, and Abu Raqwa sent a rapidly moving body of cavalry across the route to fill in the wells, and then waited at the end furthest from Egypt. At length Inal’s force appeared, exhausted and thirsty from its desert march, and the engagement which followed left the advantage with Abu Raqwa. Before the action commenced a number of the Katama tribesmen serving with the Egyptians deserted and joined the enemy, induced to do so by disgust with the conduct and now notorious cruelties of Hakim. When they presented themselves before Abu Raqwa their first act was to intercede with him on behalf of their fellow tribesmen still serving in the Fatimid army, and as he promised them a favourable reception they called out to them and they deserted also. After this Abu Raqwa joined battle and inflicted a serious defeat on Inal. The news of this disaster caused great alarm in Cairo; there was an immediate rise in the prices of provisions, and preparations were made for another expedition to North Africa.

After his success Abu Raqwa made his residence at Barqa and seemed disposed to establish a kingdom in Ifrikiya. Before long, however, he received letters from several leading men in Egypt, including Husayn b. Jawhar who was Hakim’s Commander-in-Chief, begging him to invade Egypt and assuring him of a welcome and substantial support. This, more than anything else, shows to what an extent the strange conduct of Hakim had now alienated his subjects and even those who, like Husayn, were his chief ministers and were, or had been, his personal friends. If we suppose that, by this time, Hakim had given unmistakable signs of disordered intellect we shall find in that a reasonable explanation of the desire for some one to come and deliver the country from what threatened to be a serious danger.

In response to this invitation Abu Raqwa started his advance into Egypt. The news of his undertaking threw the country into great alarm. The Druze books describe Hakim himself as completely unmoved, but other writers speak of him as seriously frightened and even planning to retire to Syria if all came to the worst. Meanwhile he sent to Syria for the Hamdanid armies, and put the general Fadi b. Salih in command of the native forces. With these Syrians and such other levies as he could raise Fadl went out and encamped at Gizeh, waiting for the invaders. At their arrival Fadl did not give battle, but manoeuvred so as to evade them, and by his position at Gizeh prevented them from being able to make a crossing of the river as that would have exposed them to his attack whilst going across. Meanwhile he managed to open up correspondence with some of the subordinate officers, amongst them with a certain captain of the B. Qorra named Mahdi, who agreed to keep him informed of all Abu Raqwa’s plans. After some delay the invaders advanced direct upon the Fatimid general who was unable to evade the movement, and so an engagement was forced near Kum Sharik. It was not decisive, but it was very severe, and caused Fadl to determine not to give battle again if he could possibly avoid doing so. Owing to his severe losses he was compelled to retire, but still lay between Abu Raqwa and the river so as to be able to make a flank attack if the Berbers tried to cross.

Abu Raqwa and his men, however, were perfectly confident that success was assured, and made plans for their future policy as conquerors. They decided to settle in Egypt and rule that country and the adjacent North Africa, leaving Syria to the Arabs. This scheme repeated the old plan of a purely Berber state in Africa with the Arabs excluded and sent back to their own country. Fadl received full information as to these projects. But there was treachery in his own army also: the Arab leaders brought from Syria had been tampered with by Abu Raqwa’s agents who tried to persuade them that they were making a mistake in fighting for the Fatimid state, and that it would be more satisfactory to divide its territories between them, the Africans under Abu Raqwa taking Egypt, the Asiatic Arabs taking Syria. It was agreed therefore that Abu Raqwa should make a night attack on Fadl’s army and, as soon as the attack commenced, the Syrian leaders were to march their men over to the enemy and thus an easy victory would be assured. But Fadl was fully informed of this plan, and the evening before the projected attack he invited the Arab leaders to dine with him. When the dinner was over and the guests wished to retire he detained them and, on one pretext or another, kept them near him until the enemy attacked. Even then he still detained them and sent orders to the Syrians to engage their opponents, and the Syrians, ignorant of the private plans of their leaders, did so. The followers of Abu Raqwa were surprised at the unexpected resistance and were finally driven off.

Meanwhile Hakim succeeded in raising reinforcements of 4,000 horsemen, which he tried to send across the river to Fadl. Abu Raqwa heard of this and determined to intercept them, setting out so quickly that Mahdi was unable to send a message to Fadl until he was already on the way. When the message reached Fadl it was too late, he could no longer get into a position to protect the new force from the fierce onset of the Berbers, and about a thousand of them were slain. The news of this misfortune, which Fadl contrived to conceal from his men for a time, caused great alarm in the city: the people were seized with panic, they feared an immediate assault, they were too much alarmed to remain in their houses and camped for the night in the streets.

Even yet the way to the river was not clear, for a considerable force remained ready to attack the Berbers if they tried to get down to the ford, and Abu Raqwa found it impossible to get to grips with them. So the Berbers were moved nearer and took up their position before the pyramids. Fadl followed at a distance. Then Abu Raqwa thought that he could force an engagement by leading him into an ambush. He passed on, therefore, towards the Fayyum, and at a place called Sabkha stationed a body of men in concealment and sent another company back towards Fadl. This body made a perfunctory attack and then turned to flight so as to draw the pursuers to the place of ambush. Unfortunately the whole plan had not been clearly explained to the men beforehand, and when those in ambush saw the others in flight they thought there had been a real defeat and, coming out of concealment, joined their retreat. This change in the arranged programme threw Abu Raqwa’s men into confusion, and Fadl profiting by the disorder fell upon them and inflicted a severe defeat. This took place on the 3rd of Dhu l-Hijja in 396. As a result Fadl was able to send to Cairo 6,000 heads of enemy slain and 100 prisoners.

This severe engagement was decisive, although Abu Raqwa himself escaped and fled, first to Upper Egypt, then to Nubia. Here he went to Hisnaljebel where the Nubian king lay ill, and pretended to be an ambassador sent by the Khalif Hakim. Owing to the king’s illness he was not able to see him and thus, ostensibly waiting for an interview, he was able to live for some time in security. Fadl had followed close behind to the Nubian frontier and managed to find out where he was. As soon as he knew this he sent a messenger to the governor of the palace informing him of the facts, and the governor had Abu Raqwa kept under close observation. In due course the king died and his son ordered the fugitive to be conducted across the frontier, and so he was taken across and conducted to Fadl’s camp. The Fatimid general received him with every courtesy and, fully supposing that Fadl’s conduct represented the attitude of the Khalif the prisoner, as he was in spite of polite treatment, wrote a letter to al-Hakim appealing to his generosity and begging that he might be pardoned for his rebellion with protestations of penitence.

The letter was duly sent and Fadl marched down towards Cairo with his prisoner who was still treated with every consideration. When they had passed Gizeh and were about to enter Fustat, on Saturday the 27th Jumada II. 397, orders were received by Fadl from the Khalif that Abu Raqwa was to enter the city riding on a camel, wearing Abzari’s turban, and with Abzari and his monkey mounted behind. Abzari’s turban was one of many gaudy colours which it was customary for those condemned to death to wear on their final parade to the place of execution, and the monkey was specially trained to strike with a whip across the face of a criminal set in front of him. For this performance Abzari was to receive 500 pieces of gold and ten pieces of cloth.

Thus Abu Raqwa entered Fustat in the midst of the army, preceded by fifteen elephants. The whole city was adorned as for a public holiday, and the population lined the streets to see Abu Raqwa paraded until he was brought to a balcony where al-Hakim was seated. The Khalif then pronounced on him the sentence that he was to be conducted to a piece of elevated ground before the mosque of Raydan and there beheaded. But when they reached the place of execution and the camel knelt for Abu Raqwa to dismount it was found that he was already dead. The body was stretched out, and the head cut off and carried to the Khalif.

This success raised Fadl’s reputation, and for a time al-Hakim showed great appreciation of his services. When the general fell ill the Khalif visited him several times, and when he recovered he presented him with gifts of large estates. Two years later, however, Fadl was put to death.

Severus of Ashmunayn relates an anecdote about al-Hakim which is commonly supposed to refer to Fadl, but it is not certain that it does so refer, and many things related by Severus seem to be open to question. According to this anecdote a certain favourite, who may have been Fadl or may not, once entered al-Hakim’s presence and found him with a comely child whom he had bought for 100 pieces of gold. He had just cut the child’s throat, and had opened the body and taken out the liver and entrails which he was cutting up as the visitor entered. At the sight the onlooker could not repress an involuntary movement of repulsion and hastily withdrew. He knew quite well that his discovery and expression of disapproval meant his execution, and at once went home, put his affairs in order, and waited for his summons. Before long a messenger from the palace arrived, and the minister who had seen too much was led away and put to death. Whether Fadl was the hero of this anecdote, or whether the story has any basis at all, remains uncertain, but it is known that he was executed by the Khalif’s orders.

Abu Raqwa’s rebellion certainly makes an important turning-point in Hakim’s reign. After it he made certain concessions to prevailing Muslim opinion, that is to say he relaxed some of his Shiʿite prejudices and left off some of the practices, such as the cursing of the early Khalifs, which were most offensive to his orthodox subjects, but at the same time he increased in severity towards the Christians and Jews who were generally hated as forming the greater part of the civil officials and tax-collectors.

As might be expected the rebellion was followed by several changes in the personnel of the court. The Commander-in-Chief, Husayn b. Jawhar, was deprived of his office on the 10th of Shaban 398, ordered to remain in his house, and forbidden to take part in the public processions which accompanied the Khalif on his visits to the principal mosques: but shortly afterwards he was pardoned and ordered to resume his place in these functions. As we have seen, it was Husayn who took part in the invitation to Abu Raqwa. Whether this was known at the time to the Khalif or not does not appear, but it is very probable that he had reasons for suspecting his fidelity. The office of Commander-in-Chief was given to Salih Rudbari b. ʿAli.

On the 16th of Rejeb 398 the Chief Qadi and Daʿi ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz also was deprived of office, perhaps here again there was reason to suspect correspondence with the enemy, and his place given to Malik b. Saʿid al-Faraqi. About three years later, as we shall see, both Husayn and ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz were so much alarmed that they fled the country, but afterwards returned and were put to death in 401. A change was made also in the important governorship of Damascus to which ʿAli b. Falah was appointed in 398.

We may trace a connection between the anxiety caused by Abu Raqwa’s revolt, complicated by growing dissatisfaction amongst the people, with Hakim’s abandonment of his more aggressive Shiʿite attitude and partial return to Sunni practice. In 397 he ordered all the inscriptions reviling the early Khalifs to be effaced, and all persons who cursed them were punished by flogging and paraded through the streets in disgrace (Maq. ii. 286, Ibn Khall. iii. 450). This year (397) he sent a white veil to cover the “House of God” at Mecca, white being more or less the official colour of the Fatimids. Perhaps this more orthodox attitude should be connected with his severer treatment of the Christians which dates from 398, and both were bids for popularity.

The year 398 had a particularly bad Nile, the river rising only sixteen yards and sixteen fingers of the seventeenth yard, with the result that there was a great rise in prices and consequent hardship. Complaint was made to the Khalif that the dearness of corn was largely caused by dealers hoarding supplies so as to force an increase, and al-Hakim announced that he would ride through the city himself and make enquiry, and would behead anyone he found with a hoard of corn. Next day he rode from his palace and passed through Fustat and out to the mosque of Rashida, his attendants entering houses and searching for stores of corn. None, however, were found, and the result of this was that popular feeling was pacified and the idea that the scarcity was artificially produced removed. In 399 the Nile suffered an unexpected check and there was increased anxiety. Twice the Khalif conducted public prayers for a good Nile. Several taxes were remitted, but bread became so dear that it could be obtained only with the greatest difficulty. On the 4th of the Egyptian month of Tot (circ. 1st September) the canal was opened, but the river had then risen only 15 yards. On the 9th of Muharram, the middle of Tot, the waters began to go down, the total rise having reached only 16 yards: as a result food became even dearer and the famine was followed by plague.

It was no doubt as an act of mourning that Hakim issued orders forbidding the holding of pleasure parties, excursions, or concerts on the river or its banks.

Although al-Hakim, by ordering the removal of the imprecatory inscriptions against the early Khalifs had done something to conciliate public opinion, he continued to enforce strictly the regulations against wine, beer, and the various kinds of food disapproved by the Shiʿites, and many fishmongers were arrested for selling fish without scales. Indeed the city was thrown into consternation by the extreme severity with which these and other rules were enforced. It was in this year (399) that the general Fadl was executed, and many other persons were punished by having their hands cut off. A decree published this year allowed the fast of the month of Ramadan to finish at the date as obtained by astronomical calculations, without waiting for the actual appearance of the new moon, a Fatimid novelty which was regarded with disapproval and is still not admitted by the orthodox. New regulations allowed the use of the Shiʿite formula in the call to prayer, or the Sunni call at the muezzin’s discretion; no complaint was to be made in either case. No one was to utter any imprecation against the early Khalifs, and if any one liked to use the reverent formula “God have mercy on them” in using their names, thus treating them as saints, they were allowed to do so: if on the other hand they chose to use the more honourable formula “God be gracious to him” after the name of ʿAli, there was full liberty to do so. Every Muslim was free to follow Sunni or Shiʿite usage as he preferred (Ibn Khall. iii. 451).

Al-Hakim’s more definite anti-Christian and anti-Jewish policy began in 398. In that year he seized the property of the churches and placed it under the control of the state treasury. He forbade the public processions which had generally been observed at the feast of Hosannas (Palm Sunday), at the feast of the Cross, and at the Epiphany. By his orders a large number of crosses were publicly burned before the doors of the Old Mosque, and orders were sent out that the same was to be done in the provinces. In some of the churches little mosques were constructed, and from these the usual call to prayer was given. Severus tells us that the use of bells was now prohibited.

The churches on the road to Maqs were destroyed, as well as the Coptic church of al-Maghitha in the Street of Rome, and all their contents were seized. Many other churches were pillaged and destroyed, the sacred vessels, furniture, and goods being handed over to Muslims, and the vessels often sold in the public markets. Amongst these were the churches at Rashida outside Fustat and the convent of Dayr al-Kasr on Mokattam, all these being given over to the people who plundered them.

Various persons sent in petitions to search churches and monasteries in the provinces for hoarded wealth, and received permission to do so (cf. Maq. Hist. of Copts). It is clear that this kind of persecution was generally popular, at least in its earlier stages, for it was generally believed that the Christians had used their opportunities as tax collectors to defraud the country to a serious extent. This no doubt contained a measure of truth, although the Fatimid government kept a closer and more careful control over its officials than has always been done by oriental powers. But it must be noted that resentment was felt towards the Christians and Jews, not for their religious beliefs, but because they were revenue officials.

In 400 Salih b. ʿAli Rudbari was deprived of his office as chief minister and replaced by Mansur b. ʿAbdun, a Christian clerk, for at no time did the persecution take such a form as to prevent the advancement of Christians and Jews to high and responsible offices in the state. The new minister was hated by the nobles who made accusations against him and brought forward his religion as one of the grounds of attack. This caused a brief but severe outburst against the Christian officials. Many of them were scourged to death and their bodies thrown to the dogs, and Mansur himself was beaten and left for dead, but as his friends stood round they perceived that there were signs of life in him, so they took him up and carried him home. After some time he recovered and went back without remark to his duties. Such a state of affairs seems to us almost incredible, for his duties were practically those of a prime minister, and that he should have been thus scourged, left to the dogs, as was the intention, and then when he was well enough go back to the highest office in the state without any particular remark seems to present al-Hakim’s court rather in the light of a lunatic asylum: practically it was very near that, for it can hardly be doubted that the Khalif at this time was definitely insane.

Orders were sent to Jerusalem for the destruction of the church of al-Qayama “the resurrection,” the most famous and honoured sanctuary of Christendom. In accordance with these orders it was plundered and then pulled down, an act which produced a deep feeling of anger in the Christian community generally, as well as amongst the subjects of the Greek Empire as amongst those who lived in Hakim’s dominions. Indirectly it caused the Christian world to form an idea of Islam as a persecuting power, and so paved the way to the Crusades. The cause of the destruction of this sanctuary is said to have been a malicious report which alleged that the Christians practised a fraud in connection with the “holy fire” given out at Easter in that church. This blessing and distribution of new fire is a prominent part of the Easter Eve ceremonies of the Greek and of the Gallic churches, and from the latter afterwards passed into the Roman rite where it originally had no place. A common but apparently unauthorised superstition amongst the Greeks represents this “new fire” as distributed in the Church of the Resurrection at Jerusalem as sent down from heaven, and this superstition was already in existence in the days of Hakim. A certain chaplain of the church, suffering from some grievance, declared to the Muslim authorities that the canons of the church practised a fraud to play upon this superstition. He said that they used to anoint the iron chain by which the great lamp was suspended in the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, and that after the Muslim governor had closed and sealed the door of the church, as was the custom, they used to get at the chain from the roof and so the fire was passed along the anointed surface and reached the wick of the lamp which was thus lighted, whilst the chaplains sang Kyrie eleison and wept, and pretended that the fire came down from heaven, thus confirming the Christians in their religious errors (Bar Hebraeus: Chron., pp. 215 sqq.).

Severus attributes the outbreak of this persecution to a monk named John whom the Patriarch steadily refused to ordain bishop and who, on this account, made his complaint to the Khalif. He waylaid Hakim as he was walking on the Mokattam hills and called on him for assistance, at the same time presenting a petition in which he said: “You are the ruler of this country, but the Christians have a king who is more powerful than you by reason of the immense wealth he has acquired. He sells bishoprics for money and acts in a way displeasing to God.” Influenced by this petition Hakim ordered the churches to be closed and the Patriarch to be brought before him. The Patriarch Zacharias was a man far advanced in years and now, by the Khalif’s order, was cast into prison. The very day after the Patriarch’s arrest Hakim sent the letter to the governor in Jerusalem ordering the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection, the clerk who prepared the letter being a Christian named Ibn Sharkin.

Shortly after this Hakim sent out notices to all the provinces that churches were to be destroyed and their gold and silver vessels confiscated, that all bishops were to be arrested, and that no one was to buy from or sell to Christians. At this many Christians conformed to Islam, whilst in most places they left off the distinctive outward signs of their religion as laid down in the revived penal laws, and popular usage evidently connived at this.

The Patriarch remained three months in prison; each day he was threatened with burning or being cast to wild beasts if he did not conform to Islam, whilst he was promised that if he did conform he would be made Chief Qadi and covered with honours, but neither threat nor promises made any impression on him. His gaoler visited him frequently and treated him roughly, but this he bore with patience and resignation. A Muslim fellow-prisoner tried to persuade him to conform, but he only replied, “All my confidence is in God who is almighty; it is He who will help me” (Severus).

A certain Christian who had been collector of taxes was in the same prison suffering the penalty for a deficit of 3,000 pieces of gold in his accounts. This prisoner was a friend of a noble Arab of the B. Qorra tribe, named Mahdi b. Mokrab, perhaps the same who had assisted Fadl at the time of Abu Raqwa’s revolt, and he stood high in the Khalif’s favour. One day he visited his Christian friend and promised to ask the Khalif for his release. The prisoner said, “I should not be willing to go out of this and leave here the Patriarch, the old man whom you see.” Mahdi enquired why the Patriarch was in prison, and when he heard the reason he judged that it would not be prudent to speak about him by name to Hakim, but he asked the Khalif to grant the liberty of all those who were detained in that prison. The Khalif consented and so the Patriarch was set free and went to Fustat, a thing which was the cause of great joy to all the Christians. But as his freedom had been granted only by an oversight it was judged expedient for him to go away and hide himself, so he retired to the valley of Habib where he lived in retirement for nine years. In that particular part the churches had not been destroyed. Officials and workmen had been sent to do so, but they were afraid of the Bedwin of the desert near and retired without doing anything.

The Khalif issued orders forbidding the Christians to observe the “Feast of Baptism,” i.e., the Epiphany, on the banks of the Nile, and prohibited the games and amusements which usually accompanied the celebration of that feast. He also forbade the observance of the “Feast of Hosannas,” i.e., Palm Sunday, and the Feast of the Cross in the autumn. At that time it was customary for Muslims and even the Khalifs themselves, to take part in the public festivities with which the Christians celebrated their greater festivals.

The destruction of churches was general during the course of this persecution, especially in the year 403. By 405 some 30,000 had been pillaged and pulled down in Syria and Egypt, and many of the Jewish synagogues were treated in a similar manner. Very often mosques were erected on their sites. The great church of the Muʿallaqa was taken from the Christians, and the Muslim call to prayer was made in the Church of Shenuda in Fustat. In many places people presented petitions asking permission to seize one of the churches or monasteries, and these petitions were invariably granted. The furniture of the churches and their vessels of gold and silver were confiscated and sold in the markets, the price obtained being paid into the treasury or given to some of the Khalif’s retainers. A special board was established to deal with the confiscated property and the goods belonging to those who had been put to death.

We turn now to Hakim’s dealings with the Muslims during the year 400. In the earlier part of the year many persons who had been detected in possession of beer, malukhia, etc., were arrested and beaten. There was a growing disquiet at Hakim’s severity, and a large number of people thought it well to take out letters of protection. Panic seized Husayn b. Jawhar the ex-Commander in Chief, ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz b. Nuʿman, and Abu l-Kasam Husayn b. Maghrabi, and they fled the country. The laws against intoxicating drinks were executed with great rigour, and a number of eunuchs, clerks, and footmen were put to death. In the month of Shawal Salih b. ʿAli Rudbari was put to death. On the 19th of this same month an order was published dispensing with the payment of the fifth levied on the Shiʿites, of the sum paid at the end of Ramadan as alms, and of the nejwa, or “voluntary contribution,” all sums collected from the Ismaʿilian sect. About the same time the “conferences of wisdom,” the regular meetings of the sect which were held in the palace, were discontinued. This seems like an anti-Shiʿite change of attitude on the Khalif’s part, but the only reasonable explanation of the numerous and arbitrary developments which took place about this time is that which commended itself to many contemporary observers, namely, that the Khalif was insane, and the disorder of his mind was growing worse.

Later in the year Hakim abandoned the enforcement of several distinctively Shiʿite usages. He ordered the restoration of the formula known as the tethwib in the call to prayer; the muezzins were forbidden to add “Come to the most excellent work” to the call, and were ordered party badges. Permission was given for the use of the salat ad-Duha or voluntary fore-noon prayer which had been strictly forbidden in 393, and also for the use of the prayer known as kunut. In the course of the year Hakim presented lamps and a large candelabrum to the Mosque of Rashida.

The result of these events was that Hakim fell into ill repute with the Shiʿites who had come to Cairo from many parts, and now found themselves in a town veering round to orthodox Muslim customs. Other events, however, quickly made him even more obnoxious to the orthodox. He had sent officials to Madina to open the house which had formerly belonged to Jaʿfar as-Sadiq and to bring away whatever might be found there. When the house was opened the officials found in it a Qurʾan, a bed, and some furniture, and the Daʿi Khatkin, who superintended the opening, carried away these articles, and at the same time helped themselves to the taxes which the sharifs paid. Khatkin then returned to Egypt accompanied by a large number of sharifs, all descendants of ʿAli, who were led to expect generous treatment from Hakim. But when they reached the Khalif’s presence he gave them only a very small part of the money Khatkin had brought back and kept the bulk for himself, saying that he deserved it more than they did, as he, the true heir of ʿAli, was the head of the sharifs. The sharifs at this left Cairo and returned to Madina cursing him (Abu l-Mahasin).

Hakim then decided to remove the bodies of the two first Khalifs, Abu Bakr and Umar, who were buried at Madina. His envoys bribed an ʿAlid who lived in a house close by the burial place, and with his help they began digging a passage through to the tombs. But a violent storm arose which so terrified the citizens that many of them sought refuge in the holy place where the Prophet and the early Khalifs were buried. The storm still continued until at last the ʿAlid who had assisted Hakim’s envoys himself became alarmed, and revealed the project on which they were engaged to the governor who had him punished, and provided that the plan should not be carried out (Mirkhond on the authority of the Istidkar of the Qadi Ahmad Damagini).

On the whole Hakim seems at this time to have been endeavouring to conciliate Sunni opinion, perhaps he had even intended to honour Abu Bakr and ʿUmar by shrines in one or other of the burial places of Cairo. Certainly he was trying to please the Sunnis when, in this same year (400), he founded a college for instruction in the Malikite system of jurisprudence, the form of canon law in vogue before the arrival of the Fatimids, and the one to which the Egyptians were most attached. He presented the college with a library, and appointed Abu Bakr Antaki as its principal, and bestowed robes of honour on the principal and the lecturers whom he welcomed at court. For three years Hakim continued to favour the Sunnis, and then he suddenly changed his attitude. In the following year indeed the pro-Sunni decrees began to be modified. On the 12th of Rabiʿ II. 401 the call to prayer was again ordered to be made in the Shiʿite form, the tethwib, and the words “Prayer is better than sleep” were again forbidden, and the formula “Come to the excellent work” was restored. The fore-noon voluntary prayer was prohibited and so the Tarawih. When Hakim found that the latter form had been used in the Old Mosque in spite of his prohibition during the whole of Ramadan he had the leader of the prayer put to death. At the same time the “Conferences of wisdom” were restored in the palace, and the various subscriptions due from the initiated of the Ismaʿilian sect were again collected. It is impossible to follow anything like policy or purpose in these incessant changes; it can only be supposed that the Khalif’s mental malady was getting worse.

In the following year (401) new laws were published forbidding all pleasure parties on the banks of the canal and requiring all doors and windows opening on the canal to be kept closed: other laws forbade music, games, or meetings for pleasure at Sahra: and others forbidding loose entertainments anywhere or the sale of singing girls.

Changes in the personnel of the administration now begin to become more numerous and capricious. At the beginning of 401 the chief minister, Mansur b. ʿAbdun, the one who had once been scourged and left for dead, was deprived of his office, and later in the year was put to death and his goods confiscated. He was replaced by Ahmad b. Muhammad Kashuri, who was beheaded after ten days. The next minister was the clerk Zara, son of Isa b. Nestorius. Husayn b. Jawhar and ʿAbdu l-ʿAziz b. Numan, who had fled the country in the previous year were invited to return and were received with honour; only to be put to death and have their goods confiscated a few months later. The third fugitive, Abu l-Kasam Husayn, had gone to Syria and declined to come back. We shall find him a little later stirring up trouble for Hakim.

Turning to Syrian affairs we find similar rapid and frequent changes. In 400 Abu l-Jaysh Hamid b. Masham was replaced by Muhammad b. Nazae as governor of Damascus. In 401 Luʿluʿ b. Abdullah was appointed governor, reaching Damascus in the month of Jumada II. On the 10th of Dhu l-Hijja at the “Feast of Sacrifice” he was replaced by Dhu l-Karnayn.

The most important event of 401 was the revolt of Hasan b. Mufarraj b. Daghfal b. Jarrah Taiy (cf. year 387). He was persuaded to this by Husayn, the one of the three who fled from Egypt in 399 and was not willing to return. His two sons and two brothers had been put to death at the request of the minister, Mansur b. ʿAbdun, his mortal enemy, and it was this which had alarmed him and caused his flight in the first place. He took refuge with Hasan, and used every persuasion to induce him to revolt. The rebel faction was headed by Hasan’s father Mufarraj, and was joined by a number of Arabs, and very soon by the whole of the tribes of the Hijaz under the leadership of the Sultan of Mecca, Husayn b. Jaʿfar. Hakim sent Yarakhtakin to Aleppo with a large army to put down this movement. As soon as he arrived in Syria Mufarraj and his son became extremely anxious but, between Gaza and Ascalon they managed to get him into an ambush, and in the ensuing battle the Fatimid general was slain. The rebels then besieged Ramla and, as new recruits pressed in every day, they soon took it. Hakim sent them letters of remonstrance, but these were disregarded, and they invited the Sultan of Mecca to assume the Khalifate. This he was perfectly ready to do and, leaving a deputy in the city, joined the army of Mufarraj, and was saluted “Commander of the Faithful.”