Thus affairs stayed for some six years, then in 511 Baldwin attempted the invasion of Egypt. He took Farama, burning the mosques, houses, and suburbs, and then advanced to Tinnis. Near this town he was taken ill, and shortly afterwards died at al-Arish. At his death the projected invasion was abandoned and the Frankish army retired, bearing with it the king of Jerusalem’s body which was ultimately buried in the Church of the Resurrection.

Egypt had practically lost all hold upon Palestine, but yet the threatening horde of Franks was held off from Egypt itself, and this check was in no small degree creditable to the wazir al-Afdal, who meanwhile maintained a firm though not absolutely pure government at home. But gradually the Khalif became more and more restive under the severe tutelage of his wazir, and always there were intrigues of the aggrieved and the ambitious to urge him on, as well as the ever present influence of the harim which, in almost all oriental countries, is the centre of intrigues against the established powers. In 515 the Khalif began to plot definitely against his wazir, and one day as al-Afdal rode out towards the Nile he was attacked and severely wounded, so that he was carried home to die. The Khalif visited him on his death-bed and expressed great sympathy and regret for the accident which had befallen him, an accident whose real nature was perfectly well known to both: as soon as the wazir breathed his last the Khalif commenced plundering his house which was the depository of enormous wealth, and this occupied him forty days (Ibn Khall. i. 614, cf. Jamal ad-Din).

After al-Afdal’s death al-Amir appointed Muhammad b. Abi Shujaa b. al-Bataihi al-Maʾmun as wazir. This new officer was a capable financier but harsh and tyrannical, and restrained the Khalif more rigorously than his predecessor had done. He was the builder of the “grey mosque” (Jamiʿ al-Akmar), so called from its being one of the earliest buildings in which stone was used almost exclusively, and completed the “Mosque of the Elephant” (Jamiʿ al-Fil) which had been commenced by al-Afdal in 498. He held office until 518 when he was arrested and his property confiscated. Three years later, in 521, he and five of his brothers, as well as the pretender who claimed to be Nizar’s son, were put to death.

After the fall of Ibn al-Bataihi the Khalif determined to act as his own 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.