Part 18

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.