On the first Friday of that year he ordered(1) King(2) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn to have the Friday sermon proclaimed for the Banū al-ʿAbbās in Egypt(3); on the second Friday the same was done in Cairo, and it was a day long remembered. When the news reached King Nūr al-Dīn in Syria, he sent word to the Caliph informing him of it through Ibn Abī ʿAsrūn—Shihāb al-Dīn(4) Abū al-Maʿālī al-Muṭahhar(5). Baghdad was decorated, the markets were closed, ceremonial pavilions were erected, and the Muslims rejoiced exceedingly.

The Abbasid sermon(6) had been discontinued in the lands of Egypt from the year 359 AH, during the caliphate of al-Muṭīʿ the Abbasid, when the Fāṭimids overran the country(7) in the days of al-Muʿizz the Fāṭimid, the founder of Cairo, until this very time—a lapse of two hundred and eight years.

Ibn al-Jawzī said, “I have composed a book on the matter which I entitled al-Naṣr ʿalā Miṣr (Victory over Egypt).”(8)

The death of al-ʿĀḍid, the last of the ʿUbaydid(9) caliphs

In the lexicon(10) al-ʿāḍid means “the one who cuts”; the phrase “lā yuʿḍad shajaruhā” means “its trees are not to be cut.”(11) In his time their dynasty was indeed cut down.

His personal name was ʿAbd Allāh, honorifically Abū Muḥammad, son of Yūsuf al-Ḥāfiẓ, son of Muḥammad al-Mustanṣir [son of al-Ẓāhir](12), son of al-Ḥākim, son of al-ʿAzīz, son of al-Muʿizz, son of al-Manṣūr,(13) son of al-Qāʾim, son of al-Mahdī, the first of their rulers.

Al-ʿĀḍid was born in 546 AH and lived twenty-one years. His conduct was reprehensible; he was a malicious Shiʿite who, had he been able, would have slain every Sunni he could reach.