two factions: one made up of the slave-soldiers and the Bedouin of Upper Egypt, the other of the Turks and the North Africans, with Ibn Hamdan at their head. They met at Kom al-Rīsh, where Ibn Hamdan routed them; nearly forty thousand were killed or drowned.

Al-Mustansir’s treasuries were drained by the Turks. They then quarreled among themselves and the fighting dragged on for days. Greed drove them to press al-Mustansir so hard that the palace carpets and furnishings were sold off for a mere pittance. The slave-soldiers gained the upper hand in Upper Egypt and blocked the roads, while the monthly cash stipend paid to the Turks reached four hundred thousand dinars. The oppression of Nāṣir al-Dawla intensified until he held all power; the emirs grew jealous and fought him, defeating him. He regrouped, returned, and won the upper hand once more. The populace was battered by turmoil on top of famine, and the soldiers plundered the houses of ordinary people (1).

Ibn al-Athīr relates: “Prices rose so high that it is said a woman once ate a single loaf of bread that had cost her one thousand dinars. She had sold goods worth one thousand dinars for three hundred dinars, with which she bought a sack(2) of wheat; the people stole it, and she managed to snatch only enough for one loaf (3).”

Al-Mustansir’s authority collapsed entirely, and even his name fell into obscurity.

Ibn Hamdan sent to demand his stipend, and his messenger found al-Mustansir seated on a rush mat with nothing around him but three attendants. Al-Mustansir said, “Is it not enough for Nāṣir al-Dawla that I must sit in such a state?” The envoy wept; Nāṣir al-Dawla was moved and allotted him a daily allowance of one hundred dinars.

Nāṣir al-Dawla presented himself as a Sunnī and denounced al-Mustansir for the foulness of his Rāfiḍī leanings and creed. Al-Mustansir’s own children and family left him out of hunger, and they wandered about in