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.