His vizier—and afterwards the vizier of his son—was Najīb al-Dawla ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Jarjarāʾī (1). He was a noble, dignified man from a family of viziers, yet both of his hands had been severed at the elbows. Al-Ḥākim had ordered the amputation in 404 AH for what he deemed treachery, and ever since Judge Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qudāʿī (3) would write his “mark” (2) for him. That mark read: “Praise be to Allah, in thanks for His blessing.” (4)

At the very outset of al-Ẓāhir’s rule, the governor of Tinnīs forwarded all the revenue he had on hand: it came to one million dinars and two million dirhams.

The ḥadith scholar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-ʿAlawī al-Kūfī relates:

“In the year 13, after I had performed the Friday prayer and the caravan had moved on from Minā, a man rose up and struck the Black Stone three times with a mace (5), shouting, ‘How long will this stone be worshipped while Muḥammad bars me (6) from what I would do? Today I shall demolish this House!’ People recoiled from him and he almost escaped. He was blond, ruddy-complexioned, powerfully built and tall, and at the mosque gate ten horsemen stood ready to support him.

“A man stepped forward for Allah’s sake and stabbed him with a dagger; the crowd closed in on him, he was burned, and several of his followers were killed. The disturbance flared up, about twenty people died, and the Egyptians began looting.

“It is also reported that four of his companions were captured. They confessed that a hundred men had pledged themselves to the plot. The four were beheaded, the face of the Black Stone was shattered, and fragments broke off from it.”