wazir, and in this was assisted by the Christian monk Abu Najah b. Kanna,
who undertook the department of finance. The monk’s method was to farm
out the taxes to Christian collectors for a net sum of 100,000 dinars,
which he paid in to the treasury. But Abu Najah made himself extremely
offensive by his arrogant airs and by being the scape-goat of the harsh
exactions of the collectors, the inevitable result of this system, and
after a brief try the Khalif was persuaded to depose him, and he was
flogged to death. Al-Amir continued, however, to act as his own wazir
until his death in 524, and this made his office universally detested and
justifies the custom of appointing a wazir or deputy on whom the odium of
the harsher details of the executive should lie, and against whom there
might be, at least in theory, an appeal to the throne. Indeed, during
these years 519 to 524 the Khalif seems to have been more heartily hated
than any other of his dynasty before or after. At length the end came in
524 by the hands of Ismaʿilian Assassins who had undertaken the duty of
ridding the country of the tyrant. On Tuesday, the 3rd of Dhu l-Qaʿdah,
the Khalif proceeded to Fustat and thence to the island of Roda, where
he had built a pleasure house for a favourite Baidawi concubine. “Some
persons who had plotted his death were lying there concealed with their
arms ready; it being agreed among them that they should kill him as he
was going up the lane through which he had to pass in order to reach the
top of the hill. As he was going by them, they sprang out and fell upon
him with their swords. He had then crossed the bridge and had no other
escort than a few pages, courtiers, and attendants. They bore him in a
boat across the Nile, and brought him still living into Cairo. The same
night he was taken to the castle and there he died, leaving no posterity
... al-Amir’s conduct was detestable: oppressed the people, seized on
their wealth and shed their blood: he committed with pleasure every
excess which should be avoided, and regarded forbidden enjoyment as the
sweetest. The people were delighted at his death” (Ibn Khall. ii. 457).
During the latter part of al-Amir’s reign the Franks continued to
consolidate their kingdom in Palestine. On Monday, the 22nd of Jumada II.
518, they took Tyre, and only Ascalon remained to the Fatimids of their
former possessions in Asia. About this time the Franks began to strike
their own coinage, after issuing coins in the name of the Fatimid Khalif
for three years.
XV
THE ELEVENTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-HAFIZ
(A.H. 524-544 = A.D. 1131-1149.)
The Khalif al-Amir left no son, but at the time of his death one of his
wives was pregnant, and it was possible that she might give birth to
an heir. Under these circumstances Abu l-Maymun ʿAbdu l-Hamid al-Hafiz
li-dini-llah (“the guardian of the religion of God”), son of Muhammad,
one of the brothers of Mustali, and consequently cousin to the late
Khalif, was declared regent, and as such received the oath of allegiance
from the citizens of Cairo on the very day of al-Amir’s murder, and on
the same day the wazir Abu ʿAli Ahmad, son of al-Afdal, received the
oath of allegiance from the troops. The regent al-Hafiz expressed his
confidence that the child about to be borne to the deceased Khalif would
be a son. “No Imam of this family,” he said, “dies without leaving a
male child to whom he transmits the Imamate by special declaration” (Ibn
Khall. 430). Although the late Khalif’s cousin was thus declared formal
regent the wazir Ahmad put him in confinement and took the whole power
into his own hands, and this received the ready acquiescence of the court
and of the troops and people, for everyone regarded the late experiment
of the Khalif acting as his own wazir as disastrous. The new wazir
ruled justly and well, and restored to each the property which had been
confiscated by al-Amir, so that as a ruler he was greatly esteemed.
In other respects, however, his conduct throws a strange light on the
conditions prevailing in the Fatimid state at this period. The Fatimids
claimed to be not only rulers of Egypt, but the legitimate Khalifs in
true descent from the Prophet, and also Imams divinely appointed as
guides and teachers of Islam. The whole Fatimid state was bound up with
this religious theory, although it was one which did not command the
sympathy of the bulk of the subject population, and a distinct tendency
had more than once appeared to discard it for frankly secular claims.
Under the wazir Ahmad this theory on which the Fatimid claim rested was
formally discarded by the government. Ahmad himself was a Shiʿite, but
of the sect of the “Twelvers” and so a follower, not of the Fatimid Imam
under whom he held office, but of the hidden and unrevealed Imam who,
under the name of Muhammad al-Muntazir, had disappeared in 260. For the
present, therefore, the Friday prayer in the mosques was offered for the
invisible “al-Kaʾim,” and his name appeared on the coinage. To us such
a condition seems almost incredible, even though during the time the
titular head was merely regent and not fully recognised as Khalif. When
al-Amir’s wife was delivered her child was a daughter, but for all that
al-Hafiz remained simply regent until 526.
Dissatisfied with his dubious position and the restrictions imposed by
the wazir Hafiz plotted against him, and Ahmad was assassinated in the
“Great Garden” as he was on his way to play polo on the 15th of Muharram
526 (Dec., 1131). At his death Hafiz received the oath of allegiance as
Khalif, and was acclaimed by his bodyguard, the “Young Guard,” although
his reign is usually dated from the date of his cousin’s death. At this
time al-Hafiz was fifty-seven years of age.
He appointed as wazir an Armenian named Yanis who had been a slave of
al-Afdal, one of the Armenian mercenaries whom he had brought from Syria.
Yanis turned out to be a severe and hard ruler, and in the following
year he was poisoned by the Khalif’s order. In spite of the warning of
al-Amir’s reign al-Hafiz then resolved to act as his own wazir, and in
this he did well and was generally regarded with respect and attachment.
His court was, however, divided into factions as the result of quarrels
about the heirship between his two sons Hasan and Faʿiz, each supported
by one of the two great bodies of negro mercenaries, the elder Hasan by
the Rayhaniya regiment, the younger by the Juyushiya. At length these
quarrels resulted in open warfare, and the victorious Juyushiya to the
number of 10,000 assembled before the royal palace and demanded the
head of the prince Hasan. The Khalif was not in a position to refuse
this demand and sent for one of the court physicians, a Jew named Abu
Mansur, and asked him to poison Hasan, but the Jew prudently declined the
dangerous task. He then sent for a Christian physician named Ibn Kirfa
who performed it, and the dead prince’s head was given to the rebels.
But the Khalif never forgave Ibn Kirfa for what he had done, and before
long an excuse was found to imprison the Christian physician, and in due
course he was executed.
After their successful revolt the troops elected as wazir the Armenian
Bahram. But he very soon made himself unpopular by showing marked
favouritism towards his fellow countrymen who, for the most part, had
entered the country in the company of the Armenian Badr al-Jamali. As
a result he was deposed and most of the Armenians expelled from the
country. Bahram ended his life as a monk.
In 532 Rudwan was appointed wazir and was the first official in Egypt to
assume the title of “king.” But he held office only for a few months, and
in 534 was cast into prison.
Meanwhile the Franks had met with several checks. The Turks under Zengi
defeated them at Atharib in 525, and in 539 took Edessa from them.
Thus the Franks began to be threatened from the north-east, and their
opponents were consciously making plans for their final subjugation or
expulsion. In 541 Zengi died and was succeeded by his son Nur ad-Din,
who becomes the decisive factor in the affairs of western Asia and Egypt
within the course of the next few years. At this time the Franks were
distinctly on the decline, and the hopes built on the foundation of
Jerusalem and other Latin kingdoms in Palestine and Syria were not being
realised. The West began to feel that the First Crusade had failed in
its effort, and so the Second Crusade, mainly the work of St. Bernard
whose aims and intentions were above question, set out in 542 and
attacked Damascus in the following year, the Crusaders then marching on
Jerusalem. But the Second Crusade was an immediate and marked failure.
Conditions were greatly changed from what they had been when the former
Crusade arrived: there was now a strong Turkish power in Syria, and
this was inclined and prepared to be aggressive. The Second Crusade was
necessarily a failure. The only important result of Frankish invasion was
the kingdom of Jerusalem which had been the work of the First Crusade.
At this period of Egyptian history we are able to avail ourselves of
the very interesting record which Osama has left of his own experiences
in Syria and Egypt, a record which has been rendered accessible in the
French translation of Derenbourg (_Vie d’Ousama_, Paris, 1886-93). Osama
left Damascus in 538 and went to Cairo, where he was well received by
al-Hafiz, who gave him a robe of honour and a house and other gifts. So
long as Hafiz ruled Osama took no part in the public affairs of Egypt,
but has left observations upon the course of events, but in the next
reign he comes forward prominently as an adviser, and usually as an
adviser of evil.
When the ex-wazir Rudwan had been ten years in prison he contrived to
bore his way out through the prison walls by the help, it is said, of a
rusty nail, and, joined by many of his friends, went to Gizeh intending
to seize the wazirate by force. There was a great ferment in Cairo;
many persons went out to join themselves with him, whilst the Khalif’s
guards prepared for defence. At the head of a large band of followers he
forced his way across the Nile, defeated the Khalif’s army, and marched
into Cairo where he made his headquarters in the Grey Mosque. There he
was joined by many of the emirs who brought supplies of men, arms, and
money. The Khalif assembled his negro troops, treated them to wine and
then, in a half intoxicated state, they marched out and demanded the head
of Rudwan. A great tumult ensued in which the emirs, frightened by the
apparent ferocity of the negro guard, left Rudwan, and his supporters
were scattered. Rudwan himself was alarmed and went out of the mosque
intending to escape, but his horse which should have been at the gate was
missing. A young guard offered his horse, and as the ex-wazir approached
to avail himself of this offer, he cut him down. Very soon the negroes
came up and finished him, then “the people of Misr share the morsels of
his flesh which they eat to give themselves courage” (Derenbourg: _Vie
d’Ousama_, p. 212).
This took place in 543 and led to a period of general disorder, for the
negro troops called out by the Khalif soon passed beyond his control,
the streets became unsafe, and faction fights between the Rayhamites who
were loyal to the Khalif and the Juyushites, Alexandrians, and Farhites
once more broke out just as sixteen years before. Again the Juyushites
were victorious, greatly to the annoyance of al-Hafiz who determined to
revenge himself upon them. But this resolve he was not able to carry out
as he died in 544.
Al-Hafiz was an old man at the time of his decease, fully seventy-six
years, and for some time had been in failing health suffering from
colic. It is said that Shirmah the Daylamite, or else Musa an-Nasran,
made for him a drum of seven metals, each welded at the moment when the
appropriate planet was in the ascendant, and that this drum when beaten
relieved the wind from which the Khalif suffered. After his death this
drum was preserved in the treasury, but was incautiously tapped by a
Turkish soldier at the time of Sala d-Din’s conquest, and that he,
astonished at the surprising result produced, dropped it and it broke to
pieces.
The writer Abu Salih describes Hafiz as particularly well disposed
towards the Christians, and especially fond of visiting the gardens of
some of the monasteries near Cairo, where he showed his goodwill by many
gifts and acts of kindness. He even visited the Christian churches, but
was careful to enter backwards lest the stooping necessitated by the low
door-ways might appear to be an act of reverence to the cross which stood
within.
XVI
THE TWELFTH FATIMID KHALIF, AZ-ZAFIR
(A.H. 543-549 = A.D. 1149-1154)
At the death of Hafiz in October, 1149, _i.e._, A.H. 543, his youngest
son Abu Mansur Ismaʿil az-Zafir li-ʾAdai dini-llah (“the conqueror of
the enemies of God’s religion”) was proclaimed Khalif in accordance
with the late sovereign’s orders. The new Khalif was then only sixteen
years of age, frivolous in his tastes, and much given to the society of
concubines and to listening to vocal music. One of his first acts was to
select Najm ad-Din b. Masal as his chief minister, thus displacing the
Emir Sayf ad-Din Abu l-Hasan ʿAli as-Sallar, whom he sent to a provincial
administration. This new minister Ibn Masal was a native of Lukk, near
Barqa, where he and his father had been horse breakers and falconers.
But Ibn Sallar was not disposed to take his deposition from office
tamely, and soon assembled a band of armed supporters to help him to
recover the wazirate. When the news of this revolt was brought to
Cairo the Khalif assembled a council of all the emirs of the state and
discussed with them the measures necessary to be taken. All professed
unqualified loyalty to the Khalif’s nominee Ibn Masal, until a certain
aged emir proposed that, if this profession represented their real
attitude, they should join in passing a decree of death against the
ex-wazir Ibn Sallar. This they unanimously refused to do. “Very well,”
said the old emir, “then act accordingly.” At this the council broke up,
all the emirs leaving the city and joining themselves to the party of Ibn
as-Sallar. The Khalif gave large sums of money to his nominee Ibn Masal,
but it was impossible to raise any supporters in Cairo. Meanwhile Ibn
as-Sallar was gathering his forces at Alexandria and advanced along the
left side of the Nile until he reached Giza on the 14th of Ramadan, 544,
and the following day entered Cairo without meeting with any resistance
and established himself in the official residence of the wazir, taking
over the control of the affairs of state. At Ibn as-Sallar’s advance Ibn
Masal fled, having held office only fifty days, and went to the Hawf east
of the capital where, with the help of the funds supplied by the Khalif,
he raised a force of supporters. As soon as he was firmly established
in Cairo Ibn as-Sallar went out to deal with his rival, but Ibn Masal
evaded him and took refuge in Upper Egypt whither Ibn as-Sallar followed
him. A pitched battle took place at Dilas, south of Wasta, in which
Ibn Masal was killed, his forces scattered, and his head cut off to be
carried to Cairo as a trophy. Thus Ibn as-Sallar was left without rival,
and the Khalif was compelled most reluctantly to recognise him as wazir.
Naturally the young sovereign had no love towards such a minister, and
almost immediately began to make plots to rid himself of him.
Although wazir under a Fatimid Khalif, Ibn as-Sallar was strictly
orthodox and gave the whole of his patronage to orthodox teachers of
the Shafiʿite school. This position in Alexandria gained him many
adherents, and their attachment was still more secured by his foundation
of a Shafiʿite college there. He continued the same attitude after his
assumption of office at Cairo, so that he was regarded by the people of
Egypt as an orthodox champion against the heretical Khalifate. By nature
he was cruel and vindictive. An anecdote is related of him that when he
was in the army in the days before he held office he had to apply to Ibn
Masum, the Secretary of War, for help to defray extraordinary expenses
incurred by him in the administration of the province of Gharbiya, as
the result of which he found himself heavily in debt. The Secretary only
replied: “By God, thy discourse entereth not my ear,” and Ibn as-Sallar
left his presence full of indignation. Long afterwards, when he had
risen to a high position, he made search for Ibn Masum, who hid himself
fearing retaliation from the one whom he had treated contemptuously as
a petitioner. At last the Secretary was found and brought before the
wazir who had him lain on a board and a nail driven through his ear, Ibn
as-Sallar asking him at each cry he uttered, “Doth my discourse yet enter
thy ear or not?” (Ibn Khall. ii. 351).
In the plots against the wazir, az-Zafir’s chief confidant was a young
man of his own age, Nasir ad-Din Nasir, the son of the general ʿAbbas
who, next to the wazir, was the most powerful man in Egypt. About this
time ʿAbbas was setting out with an army against the Franks taking with
him his son Nasir. For a moment we must pause to consider the position
of this son, the favourite of the young Khalif. Many years before, in
503 Bullara, the wife of Abu l-Futuh had come to Egypt with a child
ʿAbbas. Some time afterwards the wazir as-Sallar married her, and in due
course his step-son ʿAbbas grew up and became a general in the Egyptian
army, and had a son, Nasir, who was brought up by his grand-mother in
the house of Ibn as-Sallar. Now this youth went with the army which Ibn
as-Sallar was sending against the Franks in the company of his father
and the Syrian Osama. At Bilbays, on the point of quitting the land of
Egypt, ʿAbbas can only talk about the delightful climate of Egypt, its
many beauties, and regret that he is being exiled to the comparatively
unattractive land of Syria. But Osama interrupted his discourse and asked
him why, if he liked Egypt so much, did he not get rid of the wazir Ibn
as-Sallar and take the wazirship himself, then he would be settled in
Egypt permanently. ʿAbbas gave serious attention to these proposals and
brought in his son Nasir, and the project was discussed by the three, the
father ʿAbbas presumably being well aware of his son’s plotting with the
Khalif against the wazir who had sheltered that son in his home and was
the husband of his grand-mother. It was finally agreed that Nasir should
go back to Cairo and murder the wazir. He, as an inmate of the house,
would be the best able to get into his presence and do the deed without
premature discovery. So the army remained at Bilbays and Nasir returned.
The wazir’s house was guarded, but Nasir was well aware of the minister’s
habits and went direct to the harim which was in a detached building.
He had brought a small body of men with him, and together they went
through the grounds to the harim, where Nasir found the wazir asleep
and murdered him. As soon as the guards learned what had happened they
broke out in disorder and began to search for the assassins, but Nasir
and his men had made good their escape, and the household guards seem to
have lacked any one to direct their plans, now the master was dead. This
murder took place on the 6th of Muharram, 548.
As soon as the news was brought to ʿAbbas he returned with his forces
to Cairo where he soon restored order, and was without delay invested
with the office of wazir. The change does not seem to have aroused any
other feelings than relief amongst the people at large, for Ibn as-Sallar
had been a harsh and cruel ruler, and many had suffered for suspected
partisanship with the defeated Ibn Masal. Early in his period of office
he had suppressed the Khalif’s bodyguard of young men, and put most of
them to death, and this had been the inauguration of an almost constant
series of executions.
Thus ʿAbbas was made wazir, but this appointment resulted in the Khalif’s
own assassination within the next few months. In the circumstances which
led to this it is clear that the chief factor was a close friendship
between the Khalif and the wazir’s son Nasir, and with this was the evil
influence of Osama. It is said that the Khalif made overtures to Nasir
to slay his father ʿAbbas, presumably intending to make the son wazir
in his place; but the details of this are obscure and seem to be very
much open to question. It is, however, clear that Osama took a leading
part in stirring up the feelings of ʿAbbas and his son and inducing them
to proceed to this murder, and it is he who definitely states that the
Khalif had made overtures to Nasir to assassinate his father, and it
seems likely that he says this to excuse his own bad advice.
Both the Khalif and Nasir were of exceptional beauty, of about the same
age, and living in close intimacy,—so close as to provoke the scandalous
comments of censorious tongues. It seems that Osama was the first to
draw attention to these evil rumours. The Khalif had presented Nasir
with the fief of Qaliub immediately north of Cairo, and in the presence
of his father and Osama Nasir announced this in the words, “Our master
has given me the province of Qaliub”: at which Osama remarked, “That is
not splendid as a wedding gift.” This remark sounded offensive to ʿAbbas
and his son, and in consequence they decided to slay the Khalif. Osama
gives the further account that Ibn Munqidh said to ʿAbbas: “How can you
endure the evil reports I hear about your son?” “What are they?” asked
ʿAbbas. Osama then interposed: “People say that az-Zafir has commerce
with thy son and suspect the Khalif of doing with him what one does with
women.” ʿAbbas was aroused and asked indignantly, “But what can I do?”
Ibn Munqidh replied, “Assassinate the Khalif, then the dishonour will
be purged from thee.” Ibn Khallikan (i. 222), in his life of az-Zafir,
states that ʿAbbas said to his son, “You are ruining your reputation by
keeping company with az-Zafir; your familiarity with him is the subject
of public talk; kill him then, for it is thus that thou wilt vindicate
thy honour from these foul suspicions.”
When Nasir had made up his mind to the murder he invited the Khalif to
visit him in his house in the Armourers’ Market, and there he concealed
a band of confederates. On Thursday, the last day of Muharram, 549 (15th
April, 1154), the Khalif went privately with a single black slave to
Nasir’s house and there the conspirators fell upon him, slew him, and
buried his body beneath the floor of the room; according to Osama they
slew the black slave at the same time, but this does not seem to have
been the case as we find the slave afterwards showing the place where the
body was buried. The same night Nasir went to his father and informed him
of what he had done.
Next morning ʿAbbas went to the palace and asked for the Khalif with
whom, he said, he had important business. The household slaves went
in search of him but could not find him either in his own rooms or in
the harim, and brought the wazir word that they were unable to find
where he was. At this ʿAbbas, who had remained at the palace gate,
dismounted and went into the palace with a band of trusty followers
and asked for the Khalif’s two brothers, Jibrila and Yusuf, who were
soon brought. According to one account he bade one or the other then
assume the Khalifate as the state could not go on without a head, but
they declined. “For,” they said, “we have no share in the government,
az-Zafir’s father disinherited us when he passed it to az-Zafir: after
him it is to his son that the authority belongs” (Osama, _op. cit._).
According to the much more likely account given by Ibn Khallikan ʿAbbas
asked the two brothers where az-Zafir was, and they replied that he
ought rather to ask his son, thus making it clear that they knew whither
he had gone the night before. At once he declared, “These two are his
murderers,” and at his command they were beheaded. ʿAbbas then sent for
the late Khalif’s son al-Faʿiz, then aged five (or two) years, set him
on his shoulder and sent for the emirs. As soon as they had assembled
he said, “Here is the son of your master: his uncles have murdered his
father, and I put them to death as you may perceive. What is essential
now is, that the authority of this infant should be fully recognised.”
The emirs reply, “We hear and obey.” They then gave a great shout
which so troubled the infant on the wazir’s shoulder that he was ever
afterwards subject to fits of trembling (Ibn Khall. ii. 425-6). ʿAbbas
then took charge of the government, but subsequent events rather belong
to the reign of al-Faʿiz.
Az-Zafir was only twenty-two years of age at his death. His tastes
had been frivolous, and it would not seem that there was much reason
to regret him, but the circumstances of his murder and the general
detestation of ʿAbbas threw round his memory a halo of loyalty. He was
the founder of a mosque known as the az-Zafiri mosque, near the Bab
Zawila.
XVII
THE THIRTEENTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-FAʿIZ
(A.H. 549-555 = A.D. 1154-1160.)
In spite of ʿAbbas’ attempt to throw the guilt of the Khalif’s murder
upon his two brothers, it was well known both in the palace and in the
city that the wazir was the culprit, and both were aroused to the deepest
indignation. The emirs in the palace almost at once began to conspire
against the wazir, and decided to appeal to as-Salih b. Ruzzik the
Armenian, who was then governor of Munya Bani Kharib in Upper Egypt. The
letter they sent was coloured black as a sign of their deep mourning, and
with it they sent their hair cut off, the ancient Arab symbol of dire
distress. As soon as as-Salih received this message he assembled the
soldiers who were with him, and read the letter to them asking whether
they were ready to support him. They all declared their readiness to
follow his lead in avenging the Khalif’s murder and in liberating the
young successor from the baleful influence which at present overshadowed
the throne. With his men as-Salih then marched to Cairo. As he approached
the city all the emirs and their henchmen came out to join him as well
as many of the citizens, so that ʿAbbas found himself deserted. At
this ʿAbbas took to flight, accompanied by his son Nasir and the evil
counsellor Osama, and betook himself to Syria.