while we were still children, he commended us to his care, and Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn pledged to honour and respect us.⦗1⦘

Abū Shāma says: Three of them ruled in Ifrīqiyah—al-Mahdī, al-Qāʾim, and al-Manṣūr—and eleven reigned in Egypt, the last of whom was al-ʿĀḍid.⦗2⦘ He then remarked: They claim noble descent, yet their lineage goes back to a Magian or a Jew, and this has become common knowledge.

People speak of “the ʿAlid dynasty” or “the Fatimid dynasty,” whereas in truth it is an atheistic Bāṭinite state of Jewish or Magian origin.

He added: A number of eminent scholars have stated that their genealogy is invalid; rather, it is well known that they are the Banū ʿUbayd.

ʿUbayd’s father was descended from al-Qaddāḥ, the Magian heretic. Some say his father was a Jew from Salamiyyah, and that ʿUbayd’s original name was Saʿīd; when he came to the Maghrib he changed it to ʿUbayd Allāh, claimed a pedigree which many genealogists have declared spurious, then rose in power, seized the throne, and founded al-Mahdiyyah.

He himself was a vile heretic, his progeny grew up on the same creed, and this scourge remained upon Islam from the beginning of their rule to its very end.⦗3⦘

I say: Their dynasty endured for two hundred and sixty-eight years. The judge Abū Bakr ibn al-Bāqillānī wrote Exposing the Secrets of the Bāṭiniyyah, opening it with a disproof of their claim to descent from Imām ʿAlī; the Muʿtazilī judge ʿAbd al-Jabbār did likewise.

Al-ʿĀḍid died on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ in 567 AH from acute dysentery. Others say he died of grief when he heard that his name had been struck from the Friday sermon and that the summons to allegiance had been transferred to al-Mustaḍīʾ, and still others say