He remained ever attentive to the welfare of his subjects. He devoted himself to worship, spending the night in vigil, pressing his face to the ground and pleading, “O Allah, do not place any creature in authority over me.” Books on campaigns and the rise and fall of dynasties were read aloud in his presence. He kept boon-companions and singing slave-girls, and his household of mamluks numbered in the thousands.

Kāfūr was sharp, alert, and intelligent. He sent gifts to al-Muʿizz in the Maghrib, flattered and humbled himself before the caliph al-Muṭīʿ, and outwitted both sides. He also had a working knowledge of jurisprudence and Arabic grammar.

He died in Jumada II, 357 AH, in his early seventies. It is said that al-Ikhshīd had bought him for eighteen dinars. I have included a selection of his anecdotes in my History.

Al-Mutanabbī satirized him—and the vizier Ibn Hinzaba—saying:

“What in Egypt passes for something that makes one laugh,
except that it is a laughter akin to weeping?
There, a Nabataean from the Sawād
recites the pedigrees of the desert Arabs.
A man whose lip is half as black as night
is hailed as ‘the full moon of blackness.’
And verses in which I praised the rhinoceros—
midway between real poetry and a charm—
were never praise for him at all;
they were, rather, satire of mankind.” (1)

Yet Kāfūr possessed remarkable forbearance, shed no blood, and governed with sound judgment.