am under the Mahdī’s authority. His neck was then struck, and his head was paraded with the proclamation: “This is Shanjul, the sodomite, the disgraced.”

Once power was firmly in the Mahdī’s grasp, he displayed even more debauchery and corruption than Shanjul had ever shown.

Al-Humaydī (1) reports: “The Mahdī’s cousin Hishām ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh rose against him in Shawwāl of the year 399 AH, and the Berbers sided with him. Hishām was captured, and the Mahdī put him to death.”

Another narrator says: “The Mahdī sank further into error and violation of the harem. He seized a Christian who resembled al-Muʾayyad bi-Allāh, opened his veins until he died, brought the corpse out before the people, and announced, ‘This is al-Muʾayyad.’ He then led the funeral prayer over him and buried him (2).”

A messenger from Fulful ibn Saʿīd al-Zanātī, lord of Tripoli, arrived before the Mahdī declaring submission and asking that coinage be struck in his name so that he might aid him against Bādīs. But Bādīs overpowered Tripoli and took possession of it; Fulful therefore wrote to his cousin Ḥammād urging the tribes to abandon the Mahdī for having failed them. The Mahdī, for his part, had resolved to betray the Berbers around him and had hinted as much, and this was the reason they rebelled against him alongside his cousin Hishām ibn Sulaymān.

They first killed his two viziers—Muḥammad ibn Durrī and Khalaf ibn Ṭarīf—set fire to the saddlers’ quarter, and crossed the bridge. They then lost heart and deserted Hishām until he was slain. Most of them withdrew to Qalʿat Rabāḥ, and with them fled Sulaymān ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Sulaymān ibn al-Nāṣir, the nephew of the murdered Hishām. They pledged allegiance to him and called him al-Mustaʿīn bi-Allāh (3). They raised funds for him until he had nearly one hundred thousand dinars. With the Berbers he marched on Toledo, captured it, and killed its governor. The Mahdī was alarmed and made preparations for a siege, and the people grew ever bolder against him