al-Zahir li-I'zaz Din Allah Ali ibn al-Hakim
Ali ibn al-Hakim, seventh Ubaydid caliph as al-Zahir li-I'zaz Din Allah; his rule weakened — Aleppo and most of Syria lost — and he died in 428, succeeded by his seven-year-old son al-Mustansir.
Reign · Fatimid Caliphate · no. 1 in the chain · 1021–1036 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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The Unleashing of Egypt's Slaves in al-Fustat, 411
On a Tuesday, two nights before the end of Shawwal 411, a written placard appeared in Egypt, with slips scattered along the lanes asking the state to unleash the slaves in Egypt for three days. Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah feared it, as did the commanders and soothsayers, that they would burn Egypt, kill and plunder. So they let the slaves of Egypt take their camp, and the sultans' women pressed it until it weakened. The fighting lasted three days. People cried out to the slaves, saying that if their aims were achieved, nothing mighty or humble would remain unhumbled. Women, children and the city's notables gathered, crying out to the slaves, and [the spoils] were sold in the seized markets. Then al-Hakim went out himself, rode, halted before a line of them and called out 'Ya Aghatiyy', and they turned back. He had burned a third of Egypt, and a third of it had gone to plunder.
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The Death of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and His Sister's Concealment, 411
Ibn al-Jawzi relates from the people of Egypt that Sitt al-Mulk, al-Hakim's sister, had a gathering with Ibn Dawwas seated by her. Al-Hakim feared him and said to Sitt al-Mulk, 'What have I to do with this man? He wants to bring me together with him.' Sitt al-Mulk arranged a link between them; Ibn Dawwas came back to her and charged her to bring him round to what she wanted. She returned to Ibn Dawwas, and that night he rode to al-Muqattam and climbed the mountain with two Maghribi slaves. At dawn the two slaves came carrying him back to Ibn Dawwas, who brought him to Sitt al-Mulk's assembly. She buried him there and kept it unknown, concealing the matter for three days, and she announced that he was absent for seven. She paid the rikabiyya (the mounted guard) to deal with anyone who opposed her affair. Then Ali ibn al-Hakim was pledged allegiance, the khutba was given in his name, and she set him up as heir apparent and crowned him with the crown of al-Mu'izz. She had Ibn Dawwas killed by the hand of Nasim, master of the curtain and the sword, after promising him kingship and wealth. She grieved, and put to death those among the slaves and servants who knew. It is said he died in Shawwal 411, aged thirty-seven, and that his caliphate lasted twenty-five years.
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Kitāb al-Manāẓir composed
In Cairo Ibn al-Haytham composed the Book of Optics, his greatest work — built on experiment rather than conjecture, and it remade the science of vision into the seventeenth century.