Ifriqiyah and the neighboring regions of the Maghrib. Then, in 358 AH, he sent ahead of him Jawhar the Commander, who seized the Egyptian territories for him from Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī after the wars mentioned earlier (1). Jawhar’s hold on the land became firm, and he founded al-Qāhirah al-Muʿizziyyah and built the royal residence—the two palaces (2). In 362 AH the khuṭbah was proclaimed in al-Muʿizz’s name, and al-Muʿizz himself—just as we have recounted (3)—arrived with vast armies, accompanied by the Maghribī emirs, grandees, and commanders. When he came to Alexandria, the city’s leading figures met him, whereupon he delivered an eloquent address in which he gloried in his lineage and sovereignty, claimed that he ruled with justice and gave the oppressed redress against their oppressors, and asserted that Allah had shown mercy to the ummah through them, rescuing it from the hands of tyrants into the fairness and equity of his governance. Yet, even while openly professing brazen Rāfiḍī doctrine, he concealed—as Qāḍī al-Bāqillānī said (4)—sheer unbelief, as did all who obeyed, aided, allied with, and followed him in that creed—may Allah disfigure him and them.
He then brought before him the ascetic worshipper, [the scrupulous devotee] (5), the God-fearing Abū Bakr al-Nābulusī (6). Setting him in his presence, al-Muʿizz said:
‘It has reached me that you said: “If I had ten arrows I would shoot one at the Byzantines and nine at the Egyptians.”’
He replied, ‘I did not say that.’ Thinking he had recanted [his statement] (7), al-Muʿizz asked, ‘How did you say it, then?’
He answered, ‘I said we ought to shoot nine at you and the tenth at them.’
Al-Muʿizz asked, ‘And why so?’
He said, ‘Because you have altered the religion (8) of the ummah, killed the righteous, and claimed (9) the light of divinity, [and laid claim to what is not yours] (10).’
Al-Muʿizz therefore ordered that he be paraded publicly the first day; on the second day he was given a severe and agonizing flogging; and on the third day he ordered that he be flayed. A Jew was brought in and began skinning him while he recited the Quran.
The Jew later said, ‘Compassion for him overtook me, and when I reached the area of his heart I stabbed him with a knife, and he died—may Allah have mercy on him.’ He came to be known as “the Martyr,” and the family called Banū al-Shahīd among the people of Nablus trace their lineage back to him to this day, [and there still remain among them traces of goodness] (11).