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 practice of farming the taxes for periods of six months instead of a year, which led to great misery, as the taxes were demanded twice. His death was brought on by the rigour with which he treated the princesses, one of whom, with or without the connivance of the caliph, organized a plot for his assassination, and he died in September 1160. His son Ruzzīk inherited his post and maintained himself in it for more than a year, when another prefect of Upper Egypt, Shāwar b. Mujīr, brought a force to Cairo, before which Ruzzīk fled, to be shortly afterwards captured and beheaded. Shāwar’s entry into Cairo was at the beginning of 1163; after nine months he was compelled to flee before another adventurer, an officer in the army named Ḍirghām. Shāwar’s flight was directed to Damascus, where he was favourably received by the prince Nureddin, who sent with him to Cairo a force of Kurds under Asad al-dīn Shīrgūh. At the same time Egypt was invaded by the Franks, who raided and did much damage on the coast. Dirghām was defeated and killed, but a dispute then arose between Shāwar and his Syrian allies for

the possession of Egypt. Shāwar, being unable to cope with the Syrians, demanded help of the Frankish king of Jerusalem Amalric (Amauri) I., who hastened to his aid with a large force, which united with Shāwar’s and besieged Shīrgūh in Bilbeis for three months; at the end of this time, owing to the successes of Nureddin in Syria, the Franks granted Shīrgūh a free passage with his troops back to Syria, on condition of Egypt being evacuated (October 1164). Rather more than two years later Shīrgūh persuaded Nureddin to put him at the head of another expedition to Egypt, which left Syria in January 1167, and, entering Egypt by the land route, crossed the Nile at Itfīḥ (Atfih), and encamped at Giza; a Frankish army hastened to Shāwar’s aid. At the battle of Bābain (April 11th, 1167) the allies were defeated by the forces commanded by Shīrgūh and his nephew Saladin, who was

presently made prefect of Alexandria, which surrendered to Shīrgūh without a struggle. Saladin was soon besieged by the allies in Alexandria; but after seventy-five days the siege was raised, Shīrgūh having made a threatening movement on Cairo, where a Frankish garrison had been admitted by Shāwar. Terms were then made by which both Syrians and Franks were to quit Egypt, though the garrison of Cairo remained; the hostile attitude of the Moslem population to this garrison led to another invasion at the beginning of 1168 by King Amalric, who after taking Bilbeis advanced to Cairo. The caliph, who up to this time appears to have left the administration to the viziers, now sent for Shīrgūh, whose speedy arrival in Egypt caused the Franks to withdraw. Reaching Cairo on the 6th of January 1169, he was soon able to get possession of Shāwar’s person, and after the prefect’s execution, which happened some ten days later, he was appointed vizier by the caliph. After two months Shīrgūh died of indigestion (23rd of March 1169), and the caliph appointed Saladin as successor to Shīrgūh; the new vizier professed to hold office as a deputy of Nureddin, whose name was mentioned in public worship after that of the caliph. By appropriating the fiefs of the Egyptian officers and giving them to his Kurdish followers he stirred up much ill-feeling, which resulted in a conspiracy, of which the object was to recall the Franks with the view of overthrowing the new régime; but this conspiracy was revealed by a traitor and crushed. Nureddin loyally aided his deputy in dealing with Frankish invasions of Egypt, but the anomaly by which he, being a Sunnite, was made in Egypt to recognize a Fāṭimite caliph could not long continue, and he ordered Saladin to weaken the Fāṭimite by every available means, and then substitute the name of the Abbasid for his in public worship. Saladin and his ministers were at first afraid lest this step might give rise to disturbances among the people; but a stranger undertook to risk it on the 17th of September 1171, and the following Friday it was repeated by official order; the caliph himself died during the interval, and it is uncertain whether he ever heard of his deposition. The last of the Fāṭimite caliphs was not quite twenty-one years old at the time of his death.

(5) Ayyubite Period.—Saladin by the advice of his chief Nureddin cashiered the Fāṭimite judges and took steps to encourage the study of orthodox theology and jurisprudence in Egypt by the foundation of colleges and chairs. On the death of the ex-caliph he was confirmed in the prefecture of Egypt as deputy of Nureddin; and on the decease of the latter in 1174 (12th of April) he took the title sultan, so that with this year the Ayyubite period of Egyptian history properly begins. During the whole of it Damascus rather more than Cairo counted as the metropolis of the empire. The Egyptian army, which was motley in character, was disbanded by the new sultan, whose troops were Kurds. Though he did not build a new metropolis he fortified Cairo with the addition of a citadel, and had plans made for a new wall to enclose both it and the double city; this latter plan was never completed, but the former was executed after his death, and from this time till the French occupation of Egypt the citadel of Cairo was the political centre of the country. It was in 1183 that Saladin’s rule over Egypt and North Syria was consolidated. Much of Saladin’s time was spent in Syria, and his famous wars with the Franks belong to the history of the Crusades and to his personal biography. Egypt was largely governed by his favourite Karākūsh, who lives in popular legend as the “unjust judge,” though he does not appear to have deserved that title.

Saladin at his death divided his dominions between his sons, of whom ’Othman succeeded to Egypt with the title Malik al-Azīz ‘Imāl al-aīn. The division was not satisfactory to the heirs, and after three years (beginning of 1196) the Egyptian sultan conspired with his uncle Malik al-‘Ādil to deprive Saladin’s son al-Afḍal of Damascus, which had fallen to his lot. The war between the brothers was continued with intervals of peace, during which al-‘Ādil repeatedly changed sides: eventually he with al-‘Azīz besieged and took Damascus, and sent al-Afḍal to Sarkhad, while al-‘Ādil remained in possession of Damascus. On the death of al-‘Azīz on the 29th of November 1198 in consequence of a hunting accident, his infant son Mahommed was raised to the throne with the title Malik al-Manṣūr Nāṣir al-dīn, and his uncle al-Afḍal sent for from Sarkhad to take the post of regent or Atābeg. So soon as al-Afḍal had got possession of his nephew’s person, he started on an expedition for the recovery of Damascus: al-‘Ādil not only frustrated this, but drove him back to Egypt, where on the 25th of January 1200 a battle was fought between the armies of the two at Bilbeis, resulting in the defeat of al-Afḍal, who was sent back to Sarkhad, while al-‘Ādil assumed the regency, for which after a few months he substituted the sovereignty, causing his nephew to be deposed. He reigned under the title Malik al-‘Ādil Saif al-dīn. His name was Abū Bakr.

Though the early years of his reign were marked by numerous disasters, famine, pestilence and earthquake, of which the second seems to have been exceedingly serious, he reunited under his sway the whole of the empire which had belonged to his brother, and his generals conquered for him parts of Mesopotamia and Armenia, and in 1215 he got possession of Yemen. He followed the plan of dividing his empire between his sons, the eldest Mahommed, called Malik al-Kāmil, being his viceroy in Egypt, while al-Mu‘azzam ’Īsā governed Syria, al-Ashraf Mūsā his eastern and al-Malik al-Auḥad Ayyūb his northern possessions. His attitude towards the Franks was at the first peaceful, but later in his reign he was compelled to adopt more strenuous measures. His death occurred at Alikin (1218), a village near Damascus, while the Franks were besieging Damietta—the first operation of the Fifth Crusade—which was defended by al-Kāmil, to whom his father kept sending reinforcements. The efforts of al-Kāmil after his accession to the independent sovereignty were seriously hindered by the endeavour of an amir named Aḥmed b. Mashṭūb to depose him and appoint in his place a brother called al-Fā’iz Sābiq al-dīn Ibrāhīm: this attempt was frustrated by the timely interposition of al-Mu‘azzam ’Īsā, who came to Egypt to aid his brother in February 1219, and compelled al-Fā’iz to depart for Mosul. After a siege of sixteen and a half months Damietta was taken by the Franks on Tuesday the 6th of November 1219; al-Kāmil thereupon proclaimed the