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.”
But Hakim wrote again to Hasan and Mufarraj promising them estates and other gifts if they would cease from rebellion, so they resolved to abandon the newly proclaimed Khalif and returned to their allegiance. The result of this was a violent dispute between them and the man they had just invited to be Khalif. In the end he left them and returned to Mecca, taking Husayn Maghrabi with him. Not long afterwards Hakim sent an army under Jaʿfar b. Fallah to Syria, and expelled Hasan and his followers from Ramla. For two years Hasan remained in exile then, at the intercession of his father Mufarraj, Hakim pardoned him and gave him an estate in Egypt. Ultimately Mufarraj was poisoned by the Khalif’s orders. The anti-Khalifate of Mecca continued until 403, when the prince requested to be reconciled to Hakim, and when this was granted put Hakim’s name on his coinage and inserted it in the khutba.
In 401 Karwash b. Mukallad, chief of the Arabs of Okayl, revolted against the ʿAbbasid Khalif and transferred his allegiance to Hakim, whose name was inserted in the khutba in Mosul, Anbar, Madayn, and other towns. In Mosul the form commenced: “Praise be to God, by whose light the shadows of tyranny have been scattered, by whose greatness the foundations of the heresy of the enemies of ʿAli have been rooted up, by whose power the sun of truth has risen in the west (i.e., in Africa).” Baha d-Dawla, the ʿAbbasid Khalif’s guardian, ordered the Emir al-Joyush to march against Karwash, who at once sent his apologies to the Khalif of Baghdad, and the recognition of the rival Fatimid Khalif ceased.
Next year (402) Hakim made more rigorous decrees against beer, vegetables disapproved by the Shiʿites, and the use of fish without scales. He further forbade women to go to funerals or to visit the cemeteries. He strictly suppressed the playing of chess, and caused chess-boards to be burned. Gathering the fishermen together he exacted from them a pledge that they would not take any fish without scales, and further threatened them with death if they were found selling any such.
He had already forbidden the use of beer, and the usual law against wine was strictly enforced. Now he forbade the sale of dried raisins because they were used by some for the making of wine: he forbade their importation into the country, and ordered all found in stores to be destroyed, in consequence of which some 2,340 boxes of dried raisins were burned, the value being put at 500 pieces of gold. He next forbade the sale of fresh grapes exceeding four pounds at a time; in any case grapes were not to be exposed for sale in the markets, and strict prohibition was made against squeezing out the juice. Very many grapes found on sale were confiscated, and either trodden in the street or thrown into the Nile. The vines at Gizeh were cut down and oxen employed to tread the fruit into the mire. Orders were issued that the same was to be done throughout the provinces. But honey as well as grapes can be used in preparing fermented liquor, so the Khalif’s seal was affixed to the stores of honey at Gizeh, and some 5,051 jars of honey were broken and their contents poured into the Nile, as well as 51 cruises of date honey. The sale of fresh dates was then forbidden, and many dates were collected and burned (Maq. ii. 287, Ibn Khall. iii. 450).
A curious story is told by Severus of Ashmunayn in connection with these laws of 402. A certain merchant had all his money invested in the prohibited fruit, and lost everything by the seizure and destruction of his goods. He appeared before the Qadi and summoned Hakim to appear and make good the destruction caused by his officials. The Khalif appeared to answer the charge preferred against him, the Qadi treating him like any other citizen against whom complaint had been made. The merchant asked for compensation to the amount of 1,000 pieces of gold. Hakim in his defence says that the fruits destroyed were intended to be used in the preparation of drinks forbidden by the law of the Qurʾan, but that if the merchant will swear that they were not intended for this purpose but only to be eaten he was willing to pay their price. The merchant refuses to take the oath until the Khalif actually produced the money before the Qadi. Hakim ordered the money to be brought into court, and when it is produced the merchant swore that the fruit was intended only for eating. He then received the money and gave the Khalif a formal receipt. He then demanded letters of protection from the Khalif that he might not incur any retaliation for his suit, and these were given. When the case was concluded the Qadi, who had up to this point treated both parties as ordinary suitors, rose from his seat and gave the Khalif the salute customary at court. Hakim admired the Qadi’s conduct, and made him valuable presents in recognition of his treatment of the case.
This year the ʿAbbasid Khalif assembled the leading ʿAlids and several prominent canonists at Baghdad, and prepared a manifesto against the ʿAlid claims of the Fatimid Khalifs. To this we have already referred (cf. p. 48 supra): how much weight should be attached to it is doubtful, for the motives and pressure brought to bear are obvious. We know, however, that Hakim was greatly annoyed by it.
We have come now to the year 403, another bad year of great scarcity and famine. Early in the year (on the 2nd of Rabiʿ I) the minister, Zara b. Isa b. Nestorius, was put to death and his place given, twenty-seven days later, to Husayn b. Taher al-Wazzan, who received the title of Emir al-Umara “Prince of the empire.” This Husayn began to make a careful survey of the income and expenditure of the state, and expressed his plain opinion that Hakim’s constant and lavish presents were unwise, some measure of economy was urgently called for. It seems that these acts of generosity had now become excessive. In after years the sacred books of the Druses in praising Hakim lay especial emphasis on his unexampled generosity in presenting not only honours and titles but also pensions, estates, fiefs, etc. upon all his friends (cf. de Sacy: Chrestom. ii. 69-70). The Emir even suspended payment of the orders brought to the treasury bearing the Khalif’s seal, and addressed a remonstrance to the sovereign. Hakim replied in a tone of kindly remonstrance urging the treasurer to pay the orders. The Emir did so, but sent in a full statement of the sums paid and of the gifts made to strangers.
Extravagance was the besetting fault of all the Fatimids, but it reached its extreme in Hakim. Whilst he was alienating large portions of the public property which was not, of course, distinguished from his own private possessions, he was also making lavish gifts to the mosques of Fustat and Cairo. In Jumada II. of this year he resolved to furnish the mosque which he had completed in Cairo and which bears the name of Hakim’s Mosque. A preliminary estimate of the cost of the lamps, chains, mats, etc. came to 5,000 pieces of gold. Early in Ramadan he presented a tannur or large candelabrum to the Old Mosque in Fustat. This tannur weighed 100,000 drams and had 1,200 lights. It was carried to the mosque to the sound of drums and trumpets and with cries of tehlil (“there is no power or might but in God”) and takbir (“God is great”), the procession being led by the Kaʾid (Commander-in-Chief). When they came near the mosque it was found necessary to remove the mastabas or stone benches outside the houses on the way, and to dig up the roads to enable the tannur to be brought to the door, and then the upper part of the door had to be removed by masons to get the lamp in. The Khalif presented the mosque at the same time with 1,290 copies of the Qurʾan, some of which were written in letters of gold.
At the beginning of his reign Hakim had forbidden the use of the honorific titles customarily applied to the Fatimid Khalifs. He now forbade the custom of kissing the ground before him, and of kissing his hand or stirrup. These customs, he stated, were imitated from the Byzantine court and so not seemly for Muslims. In salutation he desired the use of the simple formula: “Hail to the Commander of the faithful; may the mercy and blessing of God be on him.” Never in speech or in writing might the formula be used, “God be propitious to him,” as this was applied to the patriarchs and saints. In writing petitions, etc., the formula should be, “May the peace of God, his abundant favour and blessing, rest upon the Commander of the faithful.” Similar forms, and no others, were to be used in praying for the Khalif: in the khutba the form approved was, “O God, be propitious to Muhammad thy chosen; grant peace to ʿAli the first of believers, whom thou hast honoured with thy bounty: O God, grant peace to the princes of the believers, the fathers of the Commander of the faithful: O God, may thy most excellent peace rest on thy servant and vicar” (Maq. ii. 288, Ibn Khall. iii. 451).
At the palace the use of cymbals and trumpets when the guard made the rounds was forbidden, all was to be done without music. A new seal was engraved for the use of the Khalif bearing the inscription, “By the help of God most high and beneficent, the Imam ʿAli will be victorious” (Maq. id.).
Various events of passing interest are associated with the month of Jumada II. of this year, the month, it will be remembered, in which the Emir of Mecca abandoned his claim to the Khalifate and was reconciled to Hakim. On the very day on which the Emir’s envoy was received Hakim commenced building an observatory at Karafa. This observatory was never finished. It should be noted in passing that various occasional references in the historians justify us in regarding Hakim as greatly interested in astrology as well as in other branches of natural science, and in this he was true to the Fatimid tradition. After receiving the submission of the Emir of Mecca Hakim wrote a letter to the Sultan, Mahmud of Ghazna, the great champion of orthodoxy, asking for his allegiance. It could hardly be expected that Mahmud would tolerate or recognise any Shiʿite, least of all the head of the Fatimid dynasty. On receiving the letter the Sultan tore it in pieces and spat on the fragments, afterwards sending them to the ʿAbbasid Khalif al-Qadir.
It was perhaps in this year, as De Sacy thinks, although Abu l-Mahsin refers to 400, the Tarikh Jafari to 404, that a crowd of men, presumably Shiʿites, came to the palace demanding justice against the Egyptians. It seems that, as Hakim was now passing through an orthodox phase and, as we have seen, had abandoned some of his pro-Shiʿite legislation, the orthodox Egyptians had been teasing the Shiʿites and paying them back for the insults they had ventured upon in the time of their ascendancy. They were not able to obtain an interview with the Khalif, but were told to come again next day. Some go away, but many pass the whole night before the palace. Next day the clamours recommenced, until at length the Kaʾid appeared and ordered them to withdraw. They then went to the Qadi who assured them that he had no power of dealing with their complaints, and they left his court cursing the “Companions,” that is to say, the early Khalifs who, though regarded by the Shiʿites as usurpers and enemies of ʿAli, were admittedly companions of the Prophet (Maq. ii. 288).
This was followed by an order strictly forbidding any persons to curse the “Companions,” and before long several persons were punished for this offence. One day Hakim saw such curses written up on a public inn, no doubt so written at the time when he had commanded the putting up of inscriptions of this sort. These he ordered to be effaced and sent officials through the streets reading out an order that all such inscriptions on inns, shops, streets, etc. must be removed, and great care was taken to see that the order was carried out. All this was a bid for popularity with the orthodox, and this year he made a further bid by assigning property for the support of the indigent, and for the doctors in the various mosques and the muezzins.
It was in Ramadan of 403 that Hakim showed the zenith of his passing orthodoxy. Each Friday during this month he attended the Mosque of Rashida clad simply, with a turban without jewel and having a sword adorned only with bands of silver, and himself led the public prayers. During his progress to and from the mosque any person who desired to do so was free to approach him, and he took the memoranda and petitions which they presented him, conversing with the petitioners. On Friday the 10th he did thus, clothed plainly in a garment of white wool and riding to the mosque on an ass. On the 27th of Ramadan he went to the Old Mosque and made there the khutba and led the Friday prayer, a thing which no Fatimid had done before. This visit was made without any display; there was no cortège or led horses, save only ten horses whose saddles and bridles were plainly adorned with silver; over his head was borne a plain white parasol without the usual gold fringe; there was no jewel in his turban, and the pulpit in the mosque was without hangings. The same simplicity was observed at the Feast of Sacrifice, at which the victims were slain by the heir, ʿAbdu r-Rahim (Maq. ii. 288). The ceremonial thus observed at the close of Ramadan was to a large extent of Shiʿite origin, but it was a concession to the feelings of the people that the Old Mosque was used. It will be remembered that it was during this month that Hakim presented the great tannur to the same mosque.
The persecution of Christians and Jews continued, and even became more severe, during this year (404). The order that Christians should wear black robes and turbans was renewed; they had to bear crosses of wood a yard long and a yard wide, and to carry them so that they could be seen. This was done to many Christians wearing small crosses as ornaments, and often carrying them beneath the outer garment. Jews received similar orders as to the billets of wood which served as their distinctive badge. According to Severus both cross and billet had to be marked with a lead seal bearing the Khalif’s name: this no doubt means that those of the proper size and material received this seal as a mark that they were approved. Both Christians and Jews were forbidden to ride horses; the mules and asses which they used must have plain saddles of wood and stirrups of sycamore wood without any ornament. Neither were allowed to have Muslim servants or to buy a slave of either sex. Muslim owners of riding animals were forbidden to let on hire to Christians or Jews, and Muslim sailors similarly were forbidden to take them in their boats. Both Christians and Jews were forbidden to wear rings on their right hand. All these orders were proclaimed in the streets of Fustat and Kahira, and great pains were taken to see that they were rigorously enforced. Many Christians turned Muslim in order to avoid these vexations (Maq. loc. cit.).
It is not easy to date precisely all the anti-Christian and anti-Jewish legislation. It is certain that it commenced in 393 and came to an end in 405, that for the most part it increased in severity up to 403, and then slightly relaxed, but there are various divergences of detail in the accounts as to the actual orders enforced in each of the intervening years.
De Sacy thinks that it was about this time (404) that the conference of the Christians and Jews with Hakim to which reference is made in the books of the Druses, took place. One day as the Khalif was walking at Karafa, in the cemetery Kibab attair, a band of representatives of the two persecuted religions waited upon him. He permitted them to speak with him and assured them that they might talk freely without fear. They pointed out to him that his conduct towards them was very different from that of the Prophet and of his early successors; they asked how he could justify his policy which was so opposed to the compacts which had been made with them. Hakim asked them to retire and meet him again in the same place the following night, to bring their learned men with them, and assured them again of his protection under which they might speak freely. Next night Hakim relates to them the conferences which the Prophet had with Christians and Jews in his day, conferences which were designed to bring about their conversion but which failed in this result; for four hundred years Islam has been available, and the reasons brought forward by the Prophet had been under consideration: now you are offered the choice of Islam again after all this delay, if you do not now accept the punishment can be no longer postponed. The representatives admit the truth of this and retire from Hakim’s presence. It is very doubtful, however, whether we can regard this description as given in the sacred books of the Druses as in any way belonging to serious history.
The Khalif this year gave permission to the Christians who wished to do so to emigrate to the land of the Greeks, or to Nubia, or Abyssinia, permission which had previously not been conceded, and many did thus emigrate. De Sacy connects the incident which we have related above with this permission to emigrate.
Although Hakim had been, and still continued, devoted to the study of astrology, he now made a decree against the astrologers who are to be banished. Many of these astrologers went to the Qadi and entered into a solemn undertaking not to practise their art, and on the strength of this promise were allowed to remain. Maqrizi notes it as a strange thing that after this decree one could no longer see astrologers in the streets. Perquisition was made and any of these found were brought before the Qadi and expelled from the country. The same treatment was meted out to professional musicians (Maq. ii. 288, Ibn Khall. iii. 450).
A general report began to circulate in the course of this year that Hakim intended to have a great massacre of many people, and the report, though vague, was readily believed, with the result that multitudes fled from Cairo, so that the markets were suspended and all business came to an end for the time (Maq. ii. 288).
On the 12th of Rabiʿ I. ʿAbdu r-Rahim, who had killed the victims at the preceding Feast of Sacrifice and was a great grandson of the Mahdi who had been the first Fatimid Khalif, was publicly declared heir to the throne to the exclusion of the Khalif’s infant son. Orders were given that he was to be saluted in the form: “Hail to the cousin of the Commander of the faithful, the designated successor of the sovereign of the Muslims.” His name was placed on the coinage, he received apartments in the royal palace, his name was inserted in the khutba, and he acted as the Khalif’s deputy in all business of state. Business was at this time little regarded by Hakim, who spent much of his time riding about in the city and in the country round, sometimes by day, often also by night.
In the following month he cut off the hands of the Kaʾid’s secretary, Abu l-Kasim Jarjarai. This secretary had been in the service of the Princess Hakim’s sister, but fearing that this was a dangerous place had left her for the service of the Kaʾid. The Princess desired to know the reason of this change, and the secretary sent her a letter in which he made reference to a certain matter which he had discovered,—probably Hakim’s intention to change the succession—and this letter the Princess, fearing a trap, showed to the Khalif, at which he was very greatly annoyed. ʿAyn had been Kaʾid (Commander-in-Chief) since 402, and had had one of his hands cut off in 401, and now on the 3rd of Jumada I. Hakim cut off his remaining hand, after which he sent him a present of 5,000 pieces of gold and 25 horses; on the 13th of the same month he had his tongue cut out and then sent other gifts, but after this the Kaʾid died. Very many were put to death about this time, for the Khalif seemed to be suffering from an insane impulse to torture and slay; so great was the alarm that many fled from the city.
Since 400 the Khalif had been showing favour to the orthodox, but in the course of this year he changed his attitude, ceased to make gifts to the mosques, to the muezzins, doctors, etc., and disbanded the college which he had founded for teaching the Malikite canon law. More than this he treated the lecturers with great severity, and put to death Abu Bakr Antaki, the principal, and one of his assistants.
Either in this year or in 405 Hakim made very strict rules about women. He forbade them to go about the streets at all. The baths used by women were closed; boot-makers were forbidden to make outdoor boots for women, and so some of the boot-makers’ shops were closed entirely. Women were forbidden to look out of doors or windows, or to go out on terraces. These laws continued in force until the close of the reign. A case occurred in which some old women who lived by spinning and selling their work to the merchants were neither able to dispose of it to their customers nor go out to buy provisions, and remained inside until their bodies, which showed that they had died of starvation, were found by the neighbours. When this was reported to the Khalif he conceded that merchants who bought or sold with women might go to the doors of their houses and the women might pass out goods or money and receive its exchange, provided they did not show their faces or hands to the merchant or any passer-by in the street.
One day Hakim was passing the “Golden Baths” and heard a great deal of noise within. On making enquiry he found that there were women inside. He ordered the doors and windows to be walled up and left the inmates to perish of hunger. The pretext given for these new regulations was the libertinage of the Egyptian women. Hakim employed many harim spies, and by means of these old women he heard of various assignations and intrigues. On several occasions he sent a eunuch with a guard of soldiers to wait in concealment at the place of assignation, and when the woman appeared had her seized and thrown into the Nile. On other occasions he sent guards to private houses to demand by name women whose conduct had been unfavourably reported, and they were disposed of in the same manner. It seems almost impossible to excuse Hakim’s conduct at this period by the supposition that he was an earnest but fanatical puritan: the frequency of new regulations, the constant changes in so many details, and the capricious character of his conduct all tend to make the theory of so many contemporaries that he was insane the more plausible.
In Syria the prestige of Egypt increased. Mansur, the son of Luʿluʿ at Aleppo, had to ask Hakim’s help against Abu l-Hayja, the grandson of Sayf ad-Dawla, and this was given. In Ramadan of this year (404) Hakim issued a charter granting to Mansur Aleppo and its dependencies which were thus held as tributary to Egypt.
Early in 405 the Chief Qadi, Malik b. Saʿid al-Faraki, was put to death after holding office for six years, nine months and ten days. His income was estimated at 15,000 pieces of gold. In Jumada the chief minister, Husayn b. Taher, was put to death and replaced by the two brothers, ʿAbdu r-Rahim and Husayn, sons of Abu Saʿid. After holding office for sixty-two days they were put to death and replaced by Fadl b. Jaʿfar, who held office only five days and was put to death; then ʿAli b. Jaʿfar b. Fallah. Maqrizi mentions no other holder, but it does not follow that ʿAli held the post to the end of the reign as, for some reason, he omits all mention of Hakim’s later years: no doubt the reason is to be found in his unwillingness to treat the closing phase of Hakim’s strange career, and to these last years he makes no reference in any part of his work.
The Chief Qadi was replaced by Ahmad b. Muhammad ibn Abi l-Awwam, who retained his office until 413, the year following the close of Hakim’s reign.
Hakim now increased his habit of riding out. He began to use asses in preference to horses, and went out clothed plainly in black, wearing on his head a little linen cap without a turban. Orders were given that when he went out the officials were to remain in their offices and not form an escort as had been the custom. As the year went on he went out more and more frequently until he was usually out six or seven times a day, sometimes riding on his ass, sometimes borne in a litter, and sometimes going in a boat on the Nile. He became more lavish than ever with his gifts, and presented estates to the owners of boats, to subordinate officials of various kinds, and to the Arab tribesmen of the B. Qorra. Amongst the gifts he made to these latter was the overlordship of the city of Alexandria and its suburbs.
In Syria Saktekin Shams ad-Dawla was made governor of Damascus, and this office he held until 408. He was a tyrannical and cruel man. Towards the end of his career he built the “New Bridge” below the citadel at Damascus, intending himself to be the first to cross it. One day when it was nearing completion he saw a horseman riding across the bridge. In great anger he sends down a messenger to arrest him. But the strange horseman turned out to be a messenger from Egypt with orders for his deposition from office.
At Aleppo Murtada ad-Dawla raised up many enemies. The Arabs of the B. Kalab tribe took up arms against him; he pretended to agree to their terms and invited them into the city to a feast: as soon as they entered he had the gates shut, arrested the chief men, and slew about one thousand. This took place in 402. Salih b. Mirdas, one of the chief men who had been imprisoned, filed through his irons and escaped in this year, 405. When he is at large he ravages the whole country, and when Murtada goes out to check him he is himself taken prisoner by the Arab. Salih, however, really desired peace, and agreed to liberate Murtada for a ransom of 15,000 pieces of gold, 120,000 pounds of silver, and 500 pieces of stuff, the freedom of the women and others of his tribe who were still in prison, the equal division of the towns and lands of Aleppo between himself and Murtada, and the gift of Murtada’s daughter in marriage. These extraordinary conditions were granted and Murtada was set free. But then he proved unwilling to divide the lands and towns of his principality or to give his daughter in marriage, so Salih makes war again and blockades Aleppo and starves it into unconditional surrender.
In 406 a quarrel sprung up between Murtada and Fatah Kalai who was the governor of the citadel. Murtada considered that he had been instrumental in fomenting Salih’s rebellion. Finally Fatah openly revolted against Murtada and sent him the message, “Go out of Aleppo, or I give the citadel to Salih.” Soon after this, as Murtada was in his palace near the gate Bab al-Jinan, he heard drums and trumpets and cried out: “Hakim, O Mansur: Salih, O Mansur,” believing that the citadel was in the hands of the Arab chieftain: so greatly was he frightened that, without enquiring what was the real cause of the drums and trumpets, he fled out of the city with his family and escaped to Antioch, where he was given an asylum by the Greek Emperor. As soon as Fatah heard of his flight he proclaimed Hakim as sovereign over Aleppo, made terms with Salih and gave him half the revenues of the city and its suburbs, and presented to him the ladies of Murtada’s harim whom he had not taken with him in his flight. Salih sent all Murtada’s wives and the other ladies to Antioch, retaining only Murtada’s daughter whom he married.
Fatah wrote an account of these events to Hakim, and the Khalif was very well pleased that he was now not merely suzerain over the ruler of Aleppo but the actual owner of the city. He conferred the title of Mubarak ad-Dawla wa-Saidha on Fatah. In the following year (407) Hakim wrote to the citizens of Aleppo abolishing the imposts and various taxes which had been paid. Fatah was given all the goods which had belonged to Murtada and was sent as governor to Tyre, after handing over the citadel of Aleppo to the Emir ʿAziz ad-Dawla, an Armenian slave who had belonged to Manjutakin. On this slave Hakim conferred the title Emir ul-Umara or “Supreme Prince,” and presented him with a pelisse of honour, several horses with harness adorned with gold, and a sword of state. Later on the Emir revolted against Hakim.
Meanwhile very curious events were taking place in Egypt. In the course of 407 (though al-Maqin says 408), a Persian daʿi named Muhammad b. Ismaʿil Darazi arrived in Egypt, a Batinite who believed in the transmigration of souls, and hoped to find at the Fatimid court a congenial atmosphere for his mystic creed. He attached himself to the Khalif, over whom he soon began to have great influence, and from whom he received many gifts and favours. In due course he succeeded in persuading the prince that he was an incarnation of the deity, and wrote a book in which he taught that the Divine Spirit which God had breathed into Adam had passed on in due succession from prophet to prophet, through the Imam ʿAli, until at length it found its abode in the Imam Hakim. So great was his influence over the Khalif that much of the public business was given into his hands, and all who desired to approach the Khalif had to pay court to the daʿi. The heir elect seems to have fallen into disfavour about this time. He was sent away from Cairo but given the important post of governor of Damascus. After he had been in Syria for some time he was suddenly attacked by a band of men who, after slaying several of his companions, put him in a box and carried him to Egypt. There he was released and, a little later, was sent back to Damascus. No explanation of this strange event is suggested, but it was generally believed that he was thus treated by the Khalif’s orders.
Amongst some of the more advanced Shiʿites many were found to follow the new doctrines of Darazi, and the daʿi accompanied by a band of followers went down to the Old Mosque where he read from the book he had written. According to an account given by al-Masin a Turk, shocked at the blasphemies which occurred in this reading, fell upon Darazi and killed him, after which his house was pillaged, and a tumult followed which lasted for three days. The Turk was arrested and put in prison, and was then brought to trial on another charge for which he was executed. For a long time the Turk’s grave was visited by the orthodox who regarded him as a martyr. But this account is not strictly correct, for Darazi was not killed at that time. According to Abu l-Mahsin, the most weighty authority, Hakim did not openly endorse Darazi’s teaching; when the tumult arose in the mosque Darazi escaped and received money from Hakim, and with this retired to Syria where he preached in the mountainous parts where the people were very ignorant, and amongst them he obtained many disciples and founded a sect, the Druses, which still exists in the Lebanon. In religion these Druses hold a kind of pantheism, which in many respects verges upon agnosticism, but has a pure morality, in spite of the many charges which have been made against this as against every other religion which keeps its creed a secret from the outside world.
About the same time, or perhaps a little after, a Persian from Farghana named Hasan al-Akhram, also appears as using his influence to persuade Hakim of his deity, or to develop the ideas which Darazi had already instilled into him. This man formed a party on the conventional lines of the extremer Shiʿites, entirely discarding all the traditional observances of the Muslim religion. One day he went with a band of fifty followers to the Old Mosque, where he found the Qadi sitting and hearing cases. After treating the by-standers roughly, they present a question to the Qadi, beginning their words with the form “In the name of Hakim, the merciful, the compassionate,” applying to him the terms usually applied to God. The Qadi raised his voice and protested against this with great indignation. The people were so angry at the blasphemy that they fell upon Akhram and his followers: of the latter several were killed, but Akhram escaped.
The most famous of these duʿat, who at this time advocated the deification of Hakim, was Hamza b. ʿAli b. Ahmad Hadi, a native of Zawzan in Persia. The Druses regard him as their founder, and date their years from the “Era of Hamza,” which is placed in A.H. 408. It seems that his teaching was earlier than that of Ahmad the Qadi (405), and so probably he was in private conference with Hakim from somewhere about 405 until he made public declaration of his doctrine in 408. He dwelt in the Mosque of Bir at Mantarea, originally the tomb of an ʿAlid who had been put to death in 145, afterwards known as the Mosque of Tibr after a minister who served under Kafur, and was one of those who had tried to resist the entry of Jawhar. He preached and invited the people to accept the teaching already expounded by Darazi, and sent out missionaries of his doctrines to various parts of Egypt and Syria. Hakim was greatly influenced by Hamza, and was induced by him to discard all the outward observances of Islam, ceasing to visit the mosques, or to take part in prayer. Under the pretext that the Arabs were a danger to travellers he suppressed the pilgrimage to Mecca and ceased to send the veil to the “House of God,” all of which caused great disgust to the orthodox. Hamza and twelve of his disciples, the traditional number of the Shiʿite nakibs, were in constant attendance on Hakim. It seems that Hamza was the real founder and teacher of Hakim’s deity, and that Darazi was one of his converts. But the details of the formation of this sectarian development during the years 405-408 are full of obscurities: it does not seem safe to follow the sacred books of the Druses who idealised the whole matter. We do not find ourselves on solid ground until 408, when the claims of Hakim to deity were publicly proclaimed and admitted by the Khalif himself. It is said (by Severus) that Hakim claimed to have a knowledge of secret things, and tried to support this claim by evidence which he gleaned from his spies. But Severus’ evidence must be regarded with some suspicion: a Syrian Christian he heard of the events in Egypt only at second hand, and is very obviously influenced by strong prejudices. He refers to this claimed omniscience of Hakim the incident of the letter which read: “We have endured injustice and tyranny, but we are not willing to endure impiety and folly. If thou knowest hidden things, say the name of him who wrote this letter,” an incident which seems to belong to the early days of the Khalif al-Mahdi in Kairawan. Severus further tells us that when Hakim’s name was mentioned in the khutba all present rose out of respect; but in Fustat the people made a prostration at this name. He is referring, no doubt, to reported conduct of Hamza’s followers. He says further that there were some people who, when Hakim appeared in the streets, used to prostrate themselves on the ground and cry out: “O thou only one, thou alone, thou who givest life and death”: this is exactly what might be expected of the extremer Shiʿites, and is in no way incredible. At this time all persecution of Christians and Jews entirely ceased; obviously the Khalif no longer regarded Islam as in any way superior to those other religions. Persons who had turned Muslims were permitted to return to their former beliefs; contrary to Muslim law they were protected from all punishment, but it is obvious that at this juncture Muslim law was not in any sense observed in the Fatimid state. Severus tells us that some Christians and Jews came to the Khalif and said: “My God, I desire to return to my former religion”: and Hakim replied: “Do as seems good to you.” According to the books of the Druses: “Although it is a precept to make war with the unbelievers, our lord has abolished this precept so far as concerns Jews and Christians.” The Druses refer this to the era of Hamza, i.e., 408 A.H., but Severus puts it in the year 736 of the “era of the Martyrs,” that is A.H. 411, the closing year of Hakim’s reign, and dates the beginning of the persecution of Christians from 402, taking the destruction of the great Church in Jerusalem as the beginning of the persecution, that is to say, the beginning of the time when active steps were taken which reached to Syria as well as Egypt, and in this agrees with Abu l-Mahsin, but Maqrizi puts the destruction of the Church of the Resurrection in 400 so that the end of the persecution, which lasted nine years, would come in 408-409, when Hakim had assented to the public declaration of his deity which seems to be the more probable date.
Towards the end of the nine years of persecution it was reported to Hakim that some converts from Christianity had been celebrating the rites of their former religion privately in houses, but he took no steps to punish them, and this emboldened others to do likewise. If this was so it would seem that there was no formal decree of toleration but simply that the penal regulations were permitted to sink into oblivion. Then some attended on the Khalif and asked permission to revert to their former religion. Hakim asked where were their girdles, crosses, and other badges?—they produced them from under their clothes. The Khalif made no rebuke but told them that they could do as they pleased, and sent them with an attendant to the office where they obtained letters of protection. After this many unwilling converts did the same, until most of those who had changed their religion from fear had returned to their former faith.
The monk Yamin next procured the exiled Patriarch Zacharias an interview with the Khalif, which took place in the monastery of St. Mercurius at Sahran. In the course of this interview Hakim gave permission to the Christians to re-open their churches, to restore those which had been destroyed, to recover building material removed at the time when churches were being demolished, and to regain possession of gardens and property attached to the churches and monasteries. The Christians were no longer required to wear distinctive badges, or rather the disuse of those badges was tacitly condoned, and were allowed to sound bells. Ibn Khallikan refers this toleration to 411, which agrees with Severus and with Bar Hebraeus, who speaks of this change as taking place shortly before Hakim was killed, and adds that at this time many of the Christians who had gone abroad returned to Egypt. Probably breaches of the persecuting laws began to be condoned in 408 or soon after, and these increased gradually as it was seen that they could be made with impunity.
Meanwhile the extremes to which the followers of Hamza were prepared to go also increased. Some of the courtiers on entering the Khalif’s presence saluted him, “Hail to thee, only and unique one, hail to thee who givest life and death, who bestowest wealth and poverty.” Having in view the peculiar religious tendencies of the extremer Shiʿite sects, it must not surprise us that there were some apparently sincere in their acceptation of the divine character of the Imam, although the bulk of the people remained sober and orthodox Muslims. One of the adherents of Hamza’s doctrines who was at Mecca struck his lance on the sacred Black Stone and said: “Why, O foolish ones, do you adore and kiss that which cannot be of any use to you nor injure you, whilst you neglect him who is in Egypt, who giveth life and death?”
Ibn Khallikan tells us that one day a Qurʾan reader was reading at court the verse: “And they will not—I swear by the Lord—they will not believe, until they have set thee up as judge between them on points where they differ” (Qur. iv. 68), pointing the while towards the Khalif. Ibn al-Mushajjar, a devout man who was present, then recited the verse: “O men, a parable is set forth to you, wherefore hearken to it. Verily, they on whom ye call beside God, cannot create a fly, though they assemble for it; and if the fly carry off aught from them, they cannot take it away from it. Weak the suppliant and the supplicated” (Qur. xxii. 72). At this the Khalif changed countenance; to Ibn al-Mushajjar he presented 100 dinars, to the reader he gave nothing. But afterwards a friend said to Ibn Mushajjar: “You know al-Hakim’s character, and are aware of his frequent prevarications: take heed lest he conceive a hatred for you and punish you later. You would then have much to suffer from him. My advice is that you get out of his sight.” Ibn al-Mushajjar took this advice seriously and set out on the pilgrimage to Mecca, but was ship-wrecked and drowned.
The years 408 to 411 were entirely abnormal in the history of Egypt. It has been suggested that the entire change in Hakim’s conduct during these years was due to his being now initiated into the higher grades of the Ismaʿilian sect, and thus he was now disposed to disregard all forms of religion. But it seems to be very dubious how far the regular Ismaʿilian system had remained in vigour in Fatimid Egypt. The state was professedly Shiʿite, the Chief Daʿi held the regular conferences required by the rules of the brotherhood, and undoubtedly initiates were admitted: but since the sojourn in Egypt it rather seems that the sect as a religious organization had greatly weakened, save in the one respect that it was regarded with loyalty by the extremer Shiʿites in Persia, and that from Persia more especially there was a constant stream of pilgrims, enthusiastic sectaries whose enthusiasm was, if anything, a source of embarrassment to the Egyptian government, whose interests were now plainly political. Hamza, Darazi, and, later on, the originators of the sect of Assassins, were all Persian Shiʿites who came to visit Egypt. It seems more probable that Hakim’s new attitude was entirely due to the influence of these Persian visitors.
In the year 409 Hakim was riding in the streets and saw what he supposed to be a woman standing in the street, a plain breach of the regulations in force. At once Hakim rode over to her and found that she was holding out a petition in her hand. He ordered one of his attendants to take the paper and arrest the woman. When they laid hands on her it turned out that it was only a guy of paper, and the document she held out was full of charges against the chastity of the Princess Hakim’s sister. Hakim went home in a towering rage. He abused his sister for giving ground for such reflections to be made on her honour, and spoke to her many harsh words. More than once before this he had treated her harshly when she had ventured to remonstrate with him on his various cruelties, but this was an attack graver than he had ever made previously.
Next day Hakim turned loose his mercenaries, Arabs, Berbers, Greeks, and negroes, upon the city. For three days they broke open houses, pillaged, slew those who resisted them, violated women, and carried off maidens of the best families, and burned a great part of Fustat. Each day Hakim rode out to the cemetery of Karafa and looked down on the suffering city. Many of the citizens came around him to implore mercy, but he remained unmoved and gave no sign of hearing them. On the fourth day the Sherifs assembled in the mosques lifting Qurʾans to heaven and implored divine assistance. So piteous was the condition of the people that many of the Turkish guards were moved and took their part, and in this they were soon joined by the Berbers, both doing their best to restrain the bestial ferocity of the negroes, until the whole place was raging in civil war. At length some of the Turks went to Hakim, and in no measured terms called on him to interfere and stop this terrible state of affairs. Hakim replied quite coolly deploring the excesses of the soldiery, and agreeing with the Turks that it ought to be stopped. He then rode down into the city on his ass and stopped the conflict. After that he called the Turks and Berbers round him, expressed the greatest regret for the suffering which the city had had to undergo, protested that he did not at all desire such an unhappy event, and that it could not be avoided, and published a general amnesty. As soon as things settled down it was found that about a third of the city had been burned, and about a half pillaged. The citizens had much trouble in recovering their ravished wives, daughters, and sisters, most of whom had been dishonoured by the negro soldiers. Some of the women had committed suicide to avoid this shame. Many of the citizens went to Hakim and asked him to get back their women for them. Hakim told them to ransom them from their captors and promised to reimburse any sums which were laid out in this manner. One of the townsmen reproached him very harshly for this great disgrace to a Muslim community, and expressed the hope that the women of the Khalif’s own family would suffer the same as their wives and daughters. Hakim bore this reproach patiently and made a mild reply.
Although this atrocious deed had made Hakim feel that he had revenged himself on those who had reflected on his sister, he had by no means forgiven her. After upbraiding her in no measured terms he informed her that he would send some women to examine her and find if she really were a virgin or not. The Asiatic historians who make most reference to the Princess describe her as a woman of the noblest character and of the highest chastity, and represent this as a deliberate and insane insult offered by her brother. It is not at all clear that this is a true estimate. Later on we find her as a woman of undoubted ability, but unscrupulous character. At the same time it is extremely probable that the members of Hakim’s family had graver reasons for alarm than anyone else, if indeed it be true that he was now showing plain signs of a disordered brain. At any rate when Hakim made this threat she was greatly alarmed; it may be that she feared such an examination, or it may be that she deeply resented the insult. In her alarm she went to Yusuf b. Dawwas ad-Dawla. Although one of the great nobles of Egypt Yusuf abstained from attending the court and had so abstained for some time, being thoroughly alarmed at Hakim’s conduct, and was careful to meet the Khalif only at public functions which he could not avoid. One time Hakim at such a parade asked him to visit him in his palace, but Yusuf did not make the desired visit. The next time they met in public Hakim reproached him for this, and Yusuf replied plainly that he would rather not go to the palace; if Hakim had any evil intention towards him he would rather wait at home to be summoned to death than to go to the palace, be killed there, and thrown to the dogs. At this reply Hakim only laughed, but Yusuf had serious fears that sooner or later the Khalif would have his revenge, and probably a cruel one.
The Princess sent to Yusuf and asked for an interview with him at night. This was arranged and she went to Yusuf’s house and explained to him the great dangers threatening them both. The best thing to do would be to arrange Hakim’s death: “You,” she said, “will be made general of the armies, minister of the empire, and guardian of the young prince. I shall live quietly in my palace as befits my sex and take no part in business.” Some reports say that she also promised to marry Yusuf. To all this Yusuf agreed. She asked him to supply two absolutely trusty men, and these he provided. A plan of assassination was agreed upon, and the two cut-throats were presented by her with a Maghrabi dagger each. With reference to this account, which is given by Bar Hebraeus, and outlined by al-Makini, Maqrizi says: “No credit should be given to what the Asiatic writers say in their books, that this prince perished by the plots of his sister. But God alone knows the whole truth” (Maq. ii. 289). It is important to note that Severus of Ashmunayn, who wrote only thirty years after these events, makes no mention of the Princess in this connection, though his tendency is to repeat all gossip unfavourable to the Fatimids: he simply states that the details of Hakim’s disappearance were unknown.
According to Ibn Khallikan, Hakim went out late in the night of 27th Shawal 411, and spent the whole night going about on the Mokattam hill. At daybreak he was near the tomb of Fokkai, and thence went east to Hulwan, about five miles from Cairo, accompanied by two attendants. He then met a company of Arabs, nine in number, who had a request to make of him. He told them to go to the palace, and sent one of his attendants with them. For some time he continued with the second attendant, then told him to go back also. At that time he was still near the tomb of Fokkai. The second attendant returned to the palace and left the Khalif alone on Mokattam. Next morning he did not return, and for three days no sign of him was seen; then, on Sunday, the 2nd of Dhu l-Zaʿda, the eunuch Nesim, who was the chamberlain, and a number of other officials, went out on the hills to make a search. At length they reached the monastery known as Dayr al-Kosayr, and near there they found Hakim’s ass with its saddle on but its legs hacked off. Following the footsteps of the ass, which were accompanied by the footprints of two men they came to a hollow where they found the Khalif’s clothes with marks of cuts, but the buttons not undone. No body was ever found. It was assumed that Hakim had been murdered, and that his arms had been cut off before the clothes were removed. After the discovery of the ass and of the clothes had been reported, the Princess considered it expedient to have Hakim’s infant son proclaimed Khalif, thus avoiding the claims of ʿAbdu r-Rahim, the heir designated by Hakim, and it seems that the main evidence for her supposed complicity with the murder rests on this act which assumed that he must be dead, though it is difficult to see how she could have acted differently under the circumstances.
Al-Mahsin is reported as saying that Hakim went out, and that after sending back Nesim and his squire, he had as companions only a page and a young slave: at the time he was filled with apprehensions as he knew from his horoscope that the night was one of great peril to him. When he was on Mokattam he said: “We belong to God and return to him”: then clapping his hands together he added, “Thou hast appeared then, O dismal sign,” referring to the star whose appearance he took as the warning of his death. Going along the hillside he met ten men of the B. Qorra who had a request to make to him, and said that they had often waited in vain at his palace door. Hakim orders them to be paid 10,000 pieces of silver from the treasury, and directs his page to go with them and draw the money for them. They objected that it might be that the Khalif was angry with them for interrupting his walk, and that perhaps the order in the page’s hand might privately direct that they were to be put to punishment, so they requested that he would also give them a safe conduct, and this the Khalif gave. Hakim and the young slave then go on and enter a valley where the two men sent by Yusuf are lying in ambush. They came out and fell upon him just as the day was dawning. At their appearance he cried out, “Wretches, what do you want?” They cut off his two arms, open his stomach, and tear out the entrails, and wrap the body in a robe. They then slew the slave, cut the traces of the ass, and carried off the body to Yusuf. He took it to the Princess, who made presents to him and to the two murderers. She then sent for the wazir, revealed to him what had happened, and made him promise secrecy. She persuaded him to write to ʿAbdu r-Rahim at Damascus, and at the same time sent an officer named ʿAli b. Dawud to Ferma to seize ʿAbdu r-Rahim on his way to Egypt and carry him to Tannis; and also she sent instructions to the governor of Tannis. Next day it was observed that Hakim did not return. Abu Arus would not allow the gates of Kahira to be opened, stating that the Khalif had ordered them to be closed the day before, and no search was made until the following day. The Princess had conferences with the chiefs of the Katama tribe and other leading persons and, with the help of lavish presents, induced them to recognise Hakim’s son as his successor, although they had already given formal recognition to ʿAbdu r-Rahim. On the seventh day she dressed the child in rich robes and sent for Yusuf, whom she declared to be ustad or guardian. Then the child was taken out in state, the wazir proclaimed him as Khalif, and he was generally recognised.
The facts of Hakim’s disappearance were never fully known. One report, as we have seen, was that he was murdered. Of the murder Maqrizi gives another account which exculpates the Princess. He says: “Masihi relates that in the year 415 a man of the family of Husayn was arrested after raising up rebellion in the southern part of Upper Egypt. This man confessed that it was he who had killed Hakim. He said that there were four accomplices of the crime, and that they afterwards fled to different parts. He showed a piece of the skin of Hakim’s head and a fragment of the piece of cotton with which he had been clothed. He was asked why he had killed him. He replied: “Out of zeal for the glory of God and of Islam.” Further questioned as to the way in which he had committed the crime, he drew out a dagger and striking it to his breast he cried, as he fell dead, “That is the way I killed him.” His head was cut off and sent to the Khalif with all that was found in him” (Maq. ii. 290).
The Druses of course believe that he disappeared like others of the Imams before him, going away in sorrow from a world which was not worthy of his pure doctrine and that he lives still in concealment to reveal himself in due time when the world is ready for him. Other persons believed that he had hidden himself because he was disgusted at the state of affairs and weary of the throne, and was living contentedly in obscurity. Bar Hebraeus tells us of a widespread belief in Egypt that Hakim had been recognised as a Christian monk at Sketis. Severus says that for sixteen years there were constant rumours of his return. A certain proselyte from Christianity named Sherut claimed to be the Khalif and called himself Abu l-ʿArab. In voice and appearance he very closely resembled Hakim and had many followers. About 427 he was in Lower Egypt, and a certain Arab who believed in him provided him with a tent where he lived for some time. Very often he used to give the Arab rich presents of clothes and arms, but himself lived in the strictest simplicity. At last the government heard of him and he fled, after some twenty years’ personation of the ex-Khalif. Abu l-Feda tells us of a pretender named Sikkin who revolted in 434, and was seized and hanged (Annal. Moslem iii. 119). De Sacy thinks that this Sikkin was the same as the Sherut of Severus. Strangely enough every one of these claimants found enthusiastic supporters, as though Hakim had been the most popular of all the Khalifs of Egypt.