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Rh aid from Bagdad for the purpose of recovering Syria to the Abbasids. The general Ja’far, hoping to deal with this enemy independently of Jauhar, met the Carmathians without waiting for reinforcements from Egypt, and fell in battle, his army being defeated. Damascus was taken by the Carmathians, and the name of the Abbasid caliph substituted for that of Mo’izz in public worship. Ḥasan al-A’ṣam advanced from Damascus through Palestine to Egypt, encountering little resistance on the way; and in the autumn of 971 Jauhar found himself besieged in his new city. By a timely sortie, preceded by the administration of bribes to various officers in the Carmathian host, Jauhar succeeded in inflicting a severe defeat on the besiegers, who were compelled to evacuate Egypt and part of Syria.

Meanwhile Mo’izz had been summoned to enter the palace that had been prepared for him, and after leaving a viceroy to take charge of his western possessions he arrived in Alexandria on the 31st of May 973, and proceeded to instruct his new subjects in the particular form of religion (Shī’ism) which his family represented. As this was in origin identical with that professed by the Carmathians, he hoped to gain the submission of their leader by argument; but this plan was unsuccessful, and there was a fresh invasion from that quarter in the year after his arrival, and the caliph found himself besieged in his capital. The Carmathians were gradually forced to retreat from Egypt and then from Syria by some successful engagements, and by the judicious use of bribes, whereby dissension was sown among their leaders. Mo’izz also found time to take some active measures against the Byzantines, with whom his generals fought in Syria with varying fortune. Before his death he was acknowledged as caliph in Mecca and Medina, as well as Syria, Egypt and North Africa as far as Tangier.

In the reign of the second Egyptian Fāṭimite ‘Azīz billah, Jauhar, who appears to have been cashiered by Mo’izz, was again employed at the instance of Jacob b. Killis, who had been raised to the rank of vizier, to deal with the situation in Syria, where a Turkish general Aftakīn had gained possession of Damascus, and was raiding the whole country; on the arrival of Jauhar in Syria the Turks called the Carmathians to their aid, and after a campaign of many vicissitudes Jauhar had to return to Egypt to implore the caliph himself to take the field. In August 977 ‘Azīz met the united forces of Aftakīn and his Carmathian ally outside Ramleh in Palestine and inflicted a crushing defeat on them, which was followed by the capture of Aftakīn; this able officer was taken to Egypt, and honourably treated by the caliph, thereby incurring the jealousy of Jacob b. Killis, who caused him, it is said, to be poisoned. This vizier had the astuteness to see the necessity of codifying the doctrines of the Fāṭimites, and himself undertook this task; in the newly-established mosque of el-Azhar he got his master to make provision for a perpetual series of teachers and students of his manual. It would appear, however, that a large amount of toleration was conceded by the first two Egyptian Fāṭimites to the other sects of Islam, and to other communities. Indeed at one time in ‘Azīz’s reign the vizierate of Egypt was held by a Christian, Jesus, son of Nestorius, who appointed as his deputy in Syria a Jew, Manasseh b. Abraham. These persons were charged by the Moslems with unduly favouring their co-religionists, and the belief that the Christians of Egypt were in league with the Byzantine emperor, and even burned a fleet which was being built for the Byzantine war, led to some persecution. Azīz attempted without success to enter into friendly relations with the Buyid ruler of Bagdad, ‘Aḍod addaula, who was disposed to favour the ‘Alids, but caused the claim of the Fāṭimites to descend from ‘Ali to be publicly refuted. He then tried to gain possession of Aleppo, as the key to ‘Irāk, but this was prevented by the intervention of the Byzantines. His North African possessions were maintained and extended by ‘Ali, son of Bulukkīn, whom Mo’izz had left as his deputy; but the recognition of the Fāṭimite caliph in this region was little more than nominal.

His successor Abū ‘Alī al-Manṣūr, who reigned under the title al-Hāḳim bi‘amr allāh, came to the throne at the age of eleven, being the son of ‘Azīz by a Christian mother. He was at first under the tutelage of the Slav Burjuwān, whose policy it was to favour the Turkish element in the army as against the Maghribine, on which the strength of the Fāṭimites had till then rested; his conduct of affairs was vigorous and successful, and he concluded a peace with the Greek emperor. After a few years’ regency he was assassinated at the instance of the young sovereign, who at an early age developed a dislike for control and jealousy of his rights as caliph. He is branded by historians as the Caligula of the East, who took a delight in imposing on his subjects a variety of senseless and capricious regulations, and persecuting different sections of them by cruel and arbitrary measures. It is observable that some of those with which Ḥākim is credited are also ascribed to Ibn Ṭūlūn and the Ikshīd (Mahommed b. Tughj). He is perhaps best remembered by his destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem (1010), a measure which helped to provoke the Crusades, but was only part of a general scheme for converting all Christians and Jews in his dominions to his own opinions by force. A more reputable expedient with the same end in view was the construction of a great library in Cairo, with ample provision for students; this was modelled on a similar institution at Bagdad. It formed part of the great palace of the Fāṭimites, and was intended to be the centre of their propaganda. At times, however, he ordered the destruction of all Christian churches in Egypt, and the banishment of all who did not adopt Islam. It is strange that in the midst of these persecutions he continued to employ Christians in high official positions. His system of persecution was not abandoned till in the last year of his reign (1020) he thought fit to claim divinity, a doctrine which is perpetuated by the (q.v.), called after one Darazī, who preached the divinity of Ḥākim at the time; the violent opposition which this aroused among the Moslems probably led him to adopt milder measures towards his other subjects, and those who had been forcibly converted were permitted to return to their former religion and rebuild their places of worship. Whether his disappearance at the beginning of the year 1021 was due to the resentment of his outraged subjects, or, as the historians say, to his sister’s fear that he would bequeath the caliphate to a distant relative to the exclusion of his own son, will never be known. In spite of his caprices he appears to have shown competence in the management of external affairs; enterprises of pretenders both in Egypt and Syria were crushed with promptitude; and his name was at times mentioned in public worship in Aleppo and Mosul.

His son Abū’l-Ḥasan ‘Ali, who succeeded him with the title al-Ẓāhir li‘i’zāz dīn allāh, was sixteen years of age at the time, and for four years his aunt Sitt al-Mulk acted as regent; she appears to have been an astute but utterly unscrupulous woman. After her death the caliph was in the power of various ministers, under whose management of affairs Syria was for a time lost to the Egyptian caliphate, and Egypt itself raided by the Syrian usurpers, of whom one, Ṣāliḥ b. Mirdās, succeeded in establishing a dynasty at Aleppo, which maintained itself after Syria and Palestine had been recovered for the Fāṭimites by Anushtakin al-Dizbarī at the battle of Ukhuwānah in 1029. His career is said to have been marked by some horrible caprices similar to those of his father. After a reign of nearly sixteen years he died of the plague.

His successor, Abū Tamīm Ma‘add, who reigned with the title al-Mostanṣir, was also an infant at the time of his accession, being little more than seven years of age. The power was largely in the hands of his mother, a negress, who promoted the interests of her kinsmen at court, where indeed even in Ḥākim’s time they had been used as a counterpoise to the Maghribine and Turkish elements in the army. In the first years of this reign affairs were administered by the vizier al-Jarjarā‘ī, by whose mismanagement Aleppo was lost to the Fāṭimites. At his death in 1044 the chief influence passed into the hands of Abu Sa’d, a Jew, and the former master of the queen-mother, and at the end of