by the poets, and even al-Mutanabbī came to him after falling out with Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān. He sought refuge with Kāfūr and received generous support from him, but when their relations later soured Kāfūr dismissed him. Al-Mutanabbī lampooned him in verse and left for ʿAḍud al-Dawlah ibn Būyah, where, as already noted, he met his death.

When Kāfūr passed away he was buried in the mausoleum that still bears his name. Authority then devolved upon Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ikhshīd (1), and it was from him that the Fatimid pretenders eventually seized the land of Egypt, as will be detailed later. Kāfūr’s independent rule lasted two years and three months—may Allah have mercy on him.

The year 358 AH began.

On ʿĀshūrāʾ the Rāfiḍites practised their innovation, and on the day of Ghadīr Khumm they celebrated their invented festival.

Iraq was struck by a severe famine; bread all but disappeared.

The Byzantines spread ruin through the countryside, burned Ḥimṣ, wrought terrible destruction there, and carried off close to one hundred thousand Muslims as captives—[Surely to Allah we belong and to Him we return] (2).

[The Entry of Jawhar the Commander into Egypt]

In the same year Abū al-Ḥasan Jawhar the Roman commander marched, at the behest of the Fatimid caliph al-Muʿizz, with a large army into Egypt. He arrived on Tuesday, thirteen nights remaining in Shaʿbān. On the following Friday the khuṭbah for al-Muʿizz was delivered from the pulpits of Egypt and all its districts. Jawhar ordered the muʾadhdhins in the Old Mosque and the Mosque of Ibn Ṭūlūn to insert “Ḥayya ʿalā khayri l-ʿamal” into the adhān and instructed the imams to recite the basmalah aloud.

Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī’s death had left Egypt without a figure around whom hearts could rally, and a crushing rise in prices had further weakened the populace. When news of this reached al-Muʿizz in Ifrīqiyah, he dispatched Jawhar—formerly a slave of his father al-Manṣūr—with a large army to Egypt. On hearing of the expedition, Kāfūr’s partisans fled before Jawhar arrived, so he entered the country without a single blow, stab, or show of resistance and carried out the measures just mentioned. Thus the Fatimids secured control of those lands after Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī.

In the same year Jawhar began building al-Qāhirah al-Muʿizziyyah (Cairo) and constructing the two palaces beside it, as will be described, and he set in place accommodations for his master al-Muʿizz al-Fāṭimī.