As-Salih was thus able to enter Cairo without opposition, which he did on the 14th of Rabiʿ I. 549 (May, 1154), and took charge of the government. Guided by the young eunuch who had been present at the murder of az-Zafir he went to Nasir’s house and lifted up the stone under which lay the body of the late Khalif. This he removed and buried in the midst of a whole city in mourning. Az-Zafir’s sister wrote a letter to the Franks at Ascalon, a town which they had captured in 548 when the army setting out from Egypt under ʿAbbas failed to appear, and offered them a reward of 60,000 dinars for ʿAbbas and his son. This reward induced the knights Templars to go out and stop ʿAbbas on his way to take refuge with the Turks in the north: an engagement ensued in which ʿAbbas was killed and Nasir taken prisoner. The prisoner was put into an iron cage and sent with an escort and an accredited envoy to Cairo, and the promised reward was at once paid. Nasir’s ears and nose were cut off and he was paraded through the city and then crucified at the Bab Zawila, after which his body was burned (on the 10th Muharram 551 = March, 1156 A.D.). Osama who really was the prime instigator of the mischief escaped any punishment.

In the year of Faʿiz’s accession (549) the Turks under Nur ad-Din took Damascus and thus began pressing on the Franks from the north. The Egyptian wazir was very anxious to enter into alliance with Nur ad-Din and employed Osama as an intermediary, sending to the Turkish Sultan flattering messages, volumes of his own poetry, and the promise of substantial assistance. But in spite of all these efforts Nur ad-Din was extremely cautious and deeply suspicious of the Egyptians, as well, no doubt, as unsympathetic towards the Shiʿite sect. The Egyptian advances received their best endorsement from a victory gained by the Fatimid general Dirgham over the Franks in 553, but even then Nur ad-Din hesitated and would not enter into any definite engagement. This was undoubtedly a mistake, for united action between the Turks and Egyptians would probably have definitely cleared out the Frank settlers, and any further effectual Frankish invasion was impossible in the face of the Turkish power now firmly established in the north.

In 555 the Khalif al-Faʿiz died (on Friday, 17th Rajab = July, 1160) whilst in an epileptic fit.

XVIII
THE FOURTEENTH FATIMID KHALIF, AL-ʿADID

(A.H. 556-567 = A.D. 1160-1171)

At the death of al-Faʿiz at the age of eleven years his cousin Abu Muhammad ʿAbdullah al-ʿAdid, son of Jibril, one of the murdered brothers of az-Zafir, and then a child of nine, was proclaimed Khalif. He was treated simply as a prisoner of state, as indeed had been the case with his predecessor, and the government was entirely in the hands of the wazir as-Salih. But as-Salih was not a good ruler; he forestalled provisions and artificially raised prices, levied frequent fines, and managed to contrive the execution of various of the great officers of state whose property was forthwith confiscated. Indeed his besetting sin was avarice, and the resources of the country were greatly exhausted by his constant speculations. At length, in 559, “seduced by long prosperity, he neglected the precautions of prudence” (Ibn Khall. 336), and plots were formed against him. These plots received the support of the Khalif, which means in plain words that they were the result of harim intrigue as is the case with the majority of plots in oriental courts, and the Khalif’s guard was told off to act as executioners. One day an attempt was made, but one of the guard accidentally locked a door he was trying to open, and so the attempt failed. A few days later another attempt was made, this time with more success, and the wazir was severely wounded. His attendants managed to kill the attackers and carried the wounded wazir to his palace, where he died on Monday, the 19th Ramadan, 559 (Sept., 1161). The Khalif visited him on his death-bed, and he gave the sovereign the final messages of his office: he regretted most that he had not succeeded in taking Jerusalem and expelling the Franks, as they formed the most serious problem before the country: and he warned his son to beware of Shawar, the governor of Upper Egypt, for he was the most dangerous and unscrupulous rival to the wazir.

As-Salih was succeeded in office by his son Abu Shuja al-ʿAdil Ruzzik, but within a year he was deposed and executed by Shawar, whose ambition had been rightly gauged by as-Salih. But Shawar, who was an Arab by birth, was distinctly unpopular, and within a few months he was driven out by Dirgham, who was the favourite of the soldiery and commanded the Barqiya brigade. Expelled from Egypt Shawar went to Damascus and opened negotiations with Nur ad-Din: he represented to him that Egypt was inadequately defended, that it would be an easy conquest, and that the union of the Muslim world would be the best means of effectually getting rid of the Franks, all the arguments already urged by as-Salih with the added attractive detail of conquest instead of alliance. But Nur ad-Din was ever extremely cautious, and moreover he distrusted what he saw of Shawar, who was very evidently a wily and treacherous man, but the ideas suggested seem to have sunk into his mind. Meanwhile circumstances began to force the Egyptian question on Nur ad-Din’s attention by making it more or less inevitable that Egypt must fall into the hands either of the Nur ad-Din, or else into those of the Frankish king of Jerusalem. It seems that a subsidy had been paid by the Fatimids to the Franks, though when this began is not recorded. Lane-Poole says that it “must have been recently instituted, for Ibn-Ruzzik, who died in 1161, assuredly would have paid no such subsidy to the ‘infidels.’ Probably Shawar began the payment in 1162, but the fact cannot be proved” (Egypt in the Mid. Ages, p. 177, note). At any rate Dirgham, seeking for increased popularity and confident in the military resources of his country and in the decadence of the Franks, stopped this payment to Amalric, who was at this time king of Jerusalem. As a result Amalric invaded Egypt in the following year (560). Dirgham went out to meet the invaders and was severely defeated at Bilbays. But it was then the time of the Nile inundation, and Dirgham had the dykes cut so that the whole country was very soon under water. This made the Franks ready to listen to some sort of compromise, and they accepted such payment as Dirgham offered and withdrew to Palestine. Shortly after their retirement Dirgham was informed of Shawar’s intrigues at Damascus, and he at once perceived that his wisest plan was to conclude an alliance with Amalric so that he could count on Frankish help against a Turkish invasion. No doubt this project was known to Nur ad-Din, although Amalric’s recent attempt was enough to force his hand, and he decided to take Shawar’s advice and send an expedition into Egypt. At the head of the army despatched by Nur ad-Din was the Turkish general Shirkuh, with his nephew Salah ad-Din (Saladin), as his lieutenant, and with him was Shawar as guide and adviser.

Dirgham held Bilbays against the Turks, but was defeated, though able to re-assemble his forces for the defence of Cairo. Shirkuh was able to gain possession of Fustat, but the fortified Kahira was held by Dirgham and he was able to resist all the Turkish attacks made upon it. Then Dirgham, who relied most on the popularity he enjoyed amongst the soldiers, sorely pressed for funds, laid hands on the waqf or “pious bequests,” a comprehensive term which in a Muslim land includes all property left in trust for religious and allied purposes, the salaries of the mosque officials, the alms bequeathed for distribution amongst the widows and orphans and pilgrims, the lands left for the upkeep of the mosques and schools, even the copies of Qurʾans presented to a mosque for the use of worshippers and teachers contain on the fly-leaf an inscription declaring them waqf for such and such a mosque; indeed the term includes everything held in trust for religious, charitable, or educational purposes, and in a country like Egypt this implies a very vast total, to-day administered under the supervision of an important department of the state. The actual seizure of this property by Dirgham, an act almost without precedent in Islam, caused a general revulsion of feeling amongst soldiers and people and practically ruined Dirgham’s cause at once. The army deserted him and the Khalif followed their lead; only a bodyguard of 500 men was left to the wazir. Conscious of his mistake Dirgham sought too late to try to repair it. For hours he stood in the great square before the Khalif’s palace with his faithful bodyguard and called out like a petitioner for the Khalif’s pardon and help, but without any reply being sent out to him. Then he noticed that even as he stood there his men were gradually stealing away from him, until at last only thirty were left. Suddenly a cry was raised that the besiegers had broken through the fortifications and had entered the royal city, which indeed was the case, the Turkish host riding in by the Bab al-Qantara leading from Jawhar’s bridge over the canal into Kafur’s garden, and at this news Dirgham turned away and rode out through the Bab az-Zuwila on the south. But this road took him through part of the old city and he was recognised by the citizens, pulled from his horse, and beheaded. His head was paraded through the streets and reviled by all, for the mediaeval Muslim had no sympathy with ecclesiastical disendowment, whilst the body was left lying on the ground until it was eaten by the city dogs.