joyous celebrations. They were the ones who advised the Tatars to kill the caliph and the people of Baghdad. Baghdad’s vizier, Ibn al-Alqamī the Rāfidī, was the one who conspired against the Muslims and corresponded with the Tatars until, through cunning and deception, he brought them into Iraq and forbade the people to fight them.

Those knowledgeable about Islam have recognized that the Rāfidīs side with the enemies of the religion.

When they ruled Cairo, their vizier was at one time a Jew and at another an Armenian Christian. The Christians gained strength through that Armenian Christian and built many churches in Egypt under the rule of those hypocritical Rāfidīs. They used to proclaim in Bayn al-Qasrayn:

“Whoever curses and reviles shall receive a dinar and an irdabb of grain.”

During their rule, the Christians seized the Syrian coast from the Muslims, until Nūr al-Dīn and Salāh al-Dīn reconquered it. During their rule, the Franks reached Bilbays, and they were defeated by the Franks, for they were hypocrites. The Christians helped them, but Allah does not grant victory to hypocrites who ally themselves with the Christians. They therefore sent to Nūr al-Dīn seeking help, and he sent them reinforcements under Asad al-Dīn and his nephew Salāh al-Dīn.

When the warriors fighting in Allah’s cause arrived in Egypt, the Rāfidīs sided with the Christians and sought to fight those Muslim warriors. A series of events known to the people ensued, until Salāh al-Dīn killed their leader, Shāwar. From that time onward, Islam, the Sunnah, and the Muslim community gained ascendancy in these lands, and the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—began to be read there from collections such as al-Bukhārī’s