Ibn Abī Ṭayy said: “He came upon a library the like of which had no equal in all the cities of Islam (1); it held something in the order of two million volumes.

He also said: ‘Among its marvels was that it contained one thousand two hundred and twenty copies of al-Ṭabarī’s History (2)—so he claimed (3).’

Al-ʿImād al-Kātib (4) reported: ‘The books numbered close to one hundred and twenty thousand volumes.’

Ibn al-Athīr (5) added: ‘Within it were one hundred thousand volumes penned in the celebrated calligraphic scripts. Al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil assumed charge of the collection and removed a great many works of his own choosing.’

He went on: ‘The Northern Palace was divided among the amirs, who took up residence there, while his father [Najm al-Dīn] (6) was lodged in a grand palace on the canal called al-Luʾluʾa, wherein lay the Kafūrī Garden. Most of the amirs were settled in the houses that had belonged to those affiliated with the Fāṭimids. Whenever any of the Turks met one of those former grandees, they would strip him of his clothing and plunder his house, so that many of them were torn from their homes, scattered to the winds, and became like the dispersed people of Sabaʾ.’

‘The Fāṭimid rule lasted two hundred and eighty-odd years (7), yet they vanished like yesterday, “as though they had never dwelt there” (Qur’an 7:92).’

‘The first of them to reign was the Mahdī. He was from (8) Salamiyya (9), a blacksmith by trade, whose name was Saʿīd (10). Originally a Jew, he entered the lands of the Maghrib and assumed the name ʿUbayd Allāh, claiming to be a noble ʿAlid Fāṭimid. Concerning himself he asserted (11) that he was the Mahdī—an assertion recorded by more than one of the foremost scholars, such as al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr…’