Hisham, surnamed Abu-Rekweh, a descendant of the house of Ommaya in Spain, took the province of Barca with a considerable force and subdued Upper Egypt. The caliph, aware of his danger, immediately collected his troops from every quarter of the kingdom, and marched against the invaders, whom, after severe fighting, he defeated and put to flight. Hisham himself was taken prisoner, paraded in Cairo with every aggravation of cruelty, and put to death. Hakim having thus by vigorous measures averted this danger, Egypt continued to groan under his tyranny until the year 411 a.h., when he fell by domestic treachery. His sister Sitt el-Mulk had, in common with the rest of his subjects, incurred his displeasure; and, being fearful for her life, she secretly and by night concerted measures with the emir Saif ed-Dowlah, chief of the guard, who very readily agreed to her plans. Ten slaves, bribed by five hundred dinars each ($1,260), having received their instructions, went forth on the appointed day to the desert tract southward of Cairo, where Hakim, unattended, was in the habit of riding, and waylaid him near the village of Helwan, where they put him to death.
Within a week Hakim’s son Ali had been raised to the caliphate with the title of Dhahir, at the command of Sitt el-Mulk. As Dhahir was only eighteen years old, and in no way educated for the government, Sitt el-Mulk took the reins of government, and was soon looked upon as the instigator of Hakim’s death. This suspicion was strengthened by the fact that his sister had the heir to the throne—who was at that time governor of Aleppo—murdered, and also the chief who had conspired with her in assassinating Hakim. She survived her brother for about four years, but the actual ruler was the Vizier Ali el-Jar jar.
Dhahir’s reign offers many points of interest. Peace and contentment reigned in the interior, and Syria continued to be the chief point of interest to the Egyptian politics. Both Lulu and his son Mansur, who received princely titles from Hakim, recognised the suzerainty of the Fatimites. Later on a disagreement arose between Lulu’s son and Dhahir. One of the former’s slaves conspired against his master, and gave Aleppo into the hands of the Fatimites, whose governor maintained himself there till 1023. In this year, however, Aleppo fell into the power of the Benu Kilab, who defended the town with great success against Romanus in 1030. Not till Dhahir’s successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of Aleppo was not yet at an end.
Mustanssir ascended the throne at the age of four years. His mother, although black and once a slave, had great influence in the choice of the viziers and other officials, and even when the caliph became of age, he showed very few signs of independence. His reign, which lasted sixty years, offers a constant alternation of success and defeat. At one time his dominion was limited to the capital Cairo, at another time he was recognised as lord of Africa, Sicily, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and even of the Abbassid capital, Baghdad. A few days later his dominion was again on the point of being extinguished. The murder of a Turk by the negroes led to a war between the Turkish mercenaries and the blacks who formed the caliph’s body-guard. The latter were joined by many of the other slaves, but the Turks were supported by the Ketama Berbers and some of the Bedouin tribes, and also the Hamdanite Nasir ed-Dowlah, who had long been in the Egyptian service. The blacks, although supported by the caliph’s mother, were completely defeated, and the caliph was forced to acknowledge the authority of Nasir ed-Dowlah. He thereupon threatened to abdicate, but when he learned that his palace with all its treasures would then be given up to plunder, he refrained from fulfilling his threat. The power of the Hamdanites and the Turks increased with every victory over the negroes, who finally could no longer maintain themselves at all in Upper Egypt. The caliph was treated with contempt, and had to give up his numerous treasures, one by one, to satisfy the avarice of his troops. Even the graves of his ancestors were at last robbed of all they contained, and when, at last, everything had been ransacked, even his library, which was one of the largest and finest, was not spared. The best manuscripts were dispersed, some went to Africa, others were destroyed, many were damaged or purposely mutilated by the Sunnites, simply because they had been written by the Shiites; still others were burnt by the Turks as worthless material, and the leather bands which held them made into sandals.
Meanwhile war between Mustanssir and Nasir ed-Dowlah continued to be waged in Egypt and Syria, until at last the latter became master of Cairo and deprived the caliph once more completely of his independence.
Soon after, a conspiracy with Ildeghiz, a Turkish general, at its head, was formed against Nasir ed-Dowlah, and he, together with his relations and followers, was brutally murdered. Ildeghiz behaved in the same way as his predecessor had-done towards the caliph, and the latter appealed to Bedr el-Jemali for help. Bedr proceeded to Acre with his best Syrian troops, landed in the neighbourhood of Damietta and proceeded towards the capital, which he entered without difficulty (January, 1075). He was appointed general and first vizier, so that he now held both the highest military and civil authority.