When his father died, he concealed the news for an entire year so that he could arrange the affairs he had in mind; only then did he announce the death, and the people offered him their condolences.

Like his father, he was bold and courageous: he conquered territories, dispatched raiding parties against the lands of the Byzantines, and tried to seize Egypt, but that did not come to pass. The conquest was achieved only later, at the hand of his grandson al-Muʿizz the Fatimid, the builder of al-Qāhira al-Muʿizziyya (Cairo), as we shall relate, Allah willing.

Al-Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān states in al-Wafayāt: “There is extreme disagreement over the lineage of this Mahdī. The author of Tārīkh al-Qayrawān says he is ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī (1) [ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī] (2) ibn Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. Others say he is ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Taqī—that is, al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Wafī Aḥmad ibn al-Raḍī ʿAbd Allāh—and these three are called the ‘Hidden Ones’ (al-mastūrūn) because they feared the ʿAbbāsid caliphs. That al-Raḍī ʿAbd Allāh, they say, was the son of Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq. Other opinions about his lineage have also been reported.”

Al-Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān continues: “The critical scholars reject his claim to this ancestry.” (3)

I add: More than one leading authority—among them Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāyīnī, al-Qāḍī al-Bāqillānī, and al-Qudūrī—has written that these men are mere pretenders with no sound genealogy in what they allege, and that the father of this ʿUbayd Allāh was a Jewish dyer in Salamiyya. Some say his name was Saʿd (4), and that he was later styled ʿUbayd Allāh. His mother’s husband was al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maymūn al-Qaddāḥ, so called al-Qaddāḥ (“the cauterizer”) because he was an eye-doctor who cauterized eyes (5).

The man who paved the way for him in those regions was Abū ʿAbd Allāh the Shīʿī, as noted earlier. He later summoned him; but when he arrived (6) from the East he fell into the hands of the ruler of Sijilmāsa, who imprisoned him. Abū ʿAbd Allāh the Shīʿī (7) continued to scheme until he rescued him (8) and handed authority over to him. Afterwards the Shīʿī regretted doing so (9) and resolved to kill him. ʿUbayd Allāh realized this, so he killed him and also slew his brother.