Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah

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Tāriqu l-Ḥakīm, called bi Amr al-Lāh (Arabic الحاكم بأمر الله "Ruler by God's Command"), was the sixth Fatimid Caliph in Egypt, ruling from 996 to 1021.

Born in Egypt in 985, Ḥakīm succeeded his father Abū Mansūr Nizār al-ˤAzīz in 996 at the age of eleven. Because it had been unclear whether he would inherit his father's position, this successful transfer of power was a demonstration of the stability of the Fatimid dynasty. In his long reign as Khalīfa, Ḥakīm extended Fatimid rule to the Emirate of Aleppo.

1 Political rivalries and movements
2 Al-Hakim Eccentric behavior
3 Death and succession
4 External links

[edit] Political rivalries and movements

Ḥakīm's most rigorous and consistent opponent was the Abbāsid Caliphate in Baghdad, which sought to halt the influence of Ismailism. This competition lead to the Baghdad Manifesto of 1011, in which the Abbāsids claimed that the line Ḥakīm represented did not legitimately descend from ˤAlī.

Ḥakīm also struggled with the Qarmatiyya rulers of Bahrain, an island in the Persian Gulf. His diplomatic and missionary vehicle was the Ismā'īlī daˤwa, with its organizational power center in Cairo.

Ḥakīm's reign was characterized by a general unrest. The Fatimid army was troubled by a rivalry between two opposing factions, the Turks and the Berbers. Tension grew between the Caliph and his viziers (called wasītas ""), and near the end of his reign the Druze movement, a religious sect centered around Ḥakīm, began to form. It was the Druze who first referred to Ḥakīm as "Ruler by God's Command".

In 1005 Al-Hakim founded the Dar al-ˤIlm "House of Knowledge", with its great public library; there philosophy and astronomy were taught in addition to purely Islamic studies of the Qur'ān and ahadīth. In 1013 he completed the mosque in Cairo begun by his father, the Masjid al-Ḥakīm "Ḥakīm's Mosque".

Image:AHMosque.jpg

[edit] Al-Hakim Eccentric behavior

Al-Hakim repeatedly exhibited erratic, eccentric and contradictory behavior. Moreover, he would forbid something then later allow it. He would repeatedly enforce trivial orders he issued. The truth is somewhere in between. Balanced and objective historians have wrote extensive accounts on him. One such source is the Egyptian Historian, al-Maqrizi. He issued a series of idiosyncratic laws , including the prohibition of Mulūkhiyya, a characteristic Egyptian dish, grape eating, water cress eating as well as the prohibition of chess. He forbade the fisherman from catching any fish that has no scales and forbade people from selling or eating such fish.

In 1005, he ordered the killing of all the dogs in Egypt and discarded them in the desert. Also, he forced the inhabitants of Cairo to work at night and sleep at morning, and whoever caught violating his orders was punished severely.Ḥakīm allegedly punished cheating merchants by having one of his slaves, Masoud, sodomize them. In 1014, he ordered women not to go out at all, and ordered the shoemakers not to make any women shoes. He killed his tutor Abul Qasim Said ibn Said al-Fariqi and the great majority of his viziers. Most of those viziers were Christians. Some of them served as physicians as well. Al-Hakim also killed many other officials, highranking as well as lowly ones. These include viziers, judges, poets, physicians, bathhouse keepers, cooks, cousin, soldiers, Jew, Christian, intelligencegatherers, and even cut the hands of female slaves in his palace. In some cases, he did the killing himself. In 1009, he destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, then under Fatimid control. The church was later rebuilt by his successor with help from the Byzantine Empire. He made Christians and Jews wear a black hat. He made the Christians wear wooden crosses, half a meter long by half a meter wide, around their necks. Although Christians were not allowed to buy slaves, male or female, and had few other privileges, they were allowed to ride horses on the condition that they ride with wooden saddles and unornamented girths. Towards the end of his reign he became increasingly erratic and feared by his officials, soldiers and subjects alike. Muslims and Christians dignitaries alike went to his palace kissing the ground, and stood at the Palace gates asking him for forgiveness, and not to listen to any rumors that were spreading. Then they raised a petition to al-Hakim and he forgave them.

[edit] Death and succession

Al-Hakim disappeared in 1021 on a trip on his donkey to the Muqattam Hills without any guards. The donkey was later found near a well covered with blood. It is believed that his sister Sitt al-Mulk hired assassins to kill him because of a dispute between them. The dispute starts when his sister asked him to stop what he is doing, because he is risking the continuity of their dynasty. In return, he accused his sister of adultery and then she decided to act first before he punished her. Although he presumably died, the Druze believe he had been hidden away by God and will return as the Mahdi on Judgement Day.

Al-Hakim was succeeded by his young son Ali az-Zahir under the regency of his sister Sitt al-Mulk.