his resting place, and in His kindness moisten the soil that enfolds him. After his death two of his sons were slain, while a third was taken captive together with three daughters (1) of his own issue. The caliphal seat then stood vacant, for no one remained among the Banū al-ʿAbbās who could fill it. Thus he was the last of the Abbasid caliphs who ruled the people with justice, from whom favor could be hoped and whose might could be feared. Their succession was sealed with ʿAbd Allāh al-Mustaʿṣim just as it had opened (2) with ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ.
[The total number of Abbasid caliphs up to al-Mustaʿṣim was thirty-seven, the first of them being ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ.]
He received the oath of allegiance, and his sovereignty and authority became manifest, in 132 AH, after the Umayyad dynasty had come to an end, as has been explained earlier. Their last caliph was ʿAbd Allāh al-Mustaʿṣim, whose dominion collapsed and whose caliphate ended (3) in this very year—[that is, 656 AH] (4).
The entire span of their rule amounted to five hundred and twenty-four years. Their authority was also cut off (5) from Iraq, and from governance there altogether, for a year and some months during the days of al-Bāsāsīrī after 450 AH, after which it returned to what it had been. We have set this out in detail under the year of al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh, and praise belongs to Allah.
The Banū al-ʿAbbās never held sway over every land as the Banū Umayya had once dominated all regions and provinces. From the Abbasids there slipped away the lands of the Maghrib, which at first were ruled by certain remaining Umayyads, descendants of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muʿāwiya ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; after long ages, other rulers prevailed there, as we have related. Contemporary with the Abbasids (6) was the realm of those who claimed descent from the Fāṭimids in Egypt, parts of the Maghrib, and the neighboring territories, as well as—at times—greater Syria and, for long periods, the Two Sanctuaries. [Likewise, Khurasan and the lands beyond the Oxus slipped from their grasp and were passed from dynasty to dynasty until nothing remained to the caliph but Baghdad and a portion of Iraq, owing to the weakness of their caliphate and their preoccupation, for the most part, with pleasures and the hoarding of wealth, as this is set forth in detail under the events and obituaries] (7).
The Fāṭimid state endured for nearly three hundred years, until its last sovereign al-ʿĀḍid, who died after 560 AH during the Ṣalāḥid-Nāṣirid-Qudsī era [as we have mentioned]. The number of Fāṭimid rulers was fourteen caliphs—[or, if you prefer,] (8) successors—and the precise length of their reign, from 297 AH until the death of