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Ingulphus, a secretary of William the Conqueror, was a companion of this pilgrimage: he observes that they sailed from Normandy, thirty stout and well-appointed horsemen; but that they repassed the Alps, twenty miserable palmers, with the staff in their hand, and the wallet at their back. After the defeat of the Romans, the tranquillity of the Fatimite caliphs was invaded by the Turks.
It was received so quietly, as the Arab historian says, "that not a brace of goats butted over it." The last of the Fatimite caliphs died a few days after: it was one of those deaths, so frequent in history, which occur so exactly at the moment most convenient. Did Saladin order him to be bowstrung? Probably.
The Ismailians also introduced mysticism into the interpretation of the Koran, and even taught that its moral precepts were not to be taken in a literal sense. Thus the Fatimite caliphs founded their authority upon a combination of political power and superstition. Abu'l Kasim, who ruled at Alexandria, was succeeded in 945 by his son, El-Mansur.
He was more anxious to extinguish the Fatimite power in Egypt; in other words, to become lord of countries hemming in the Latin kingdom to the south as well as to the north; and it was precisely this danger which King Almeric knew that he had most reason to fear.
The banners of Almeric and the Fatimite Caliph waved together on the walls of Alexandria; but on either side the peace or truce was a mere makeshift for the purpose of gaining time.
The Fatimite dynasty of Egypt, meanwhile, had long been showing signs of decay, the caliphs having become mere tools in the hands of their viziers. In 1163 one of these viziers, Shawer, finding himself expelled from his post by a rival, sought refuge at the court of Aleppo, and applied to the sultan for assistance.
He made Bagdad the centre of science, collected great libraries, and surrounded himself with learned men. The elevated taste thus cultivated continued after the division of the Saracen Empire by internal dissensions into three parts. The Abasside dynasty in Asia, the Fatimite in Egypt, and the Ommiade in Spain, became rivals not merely in politics, but also in letters and science.
From the Roman conquest to this final calamity, Syracuse, now dwindled to the primitive Isle of Ortygea, had insensibly declined. In Sicily, the religion and language of the Greeks were eradicated; and such was the docility of the rising generation, that fifteen thousand boys were circumcised and clothed on the same day with the son of the Fatimite caliph.
Whatever yet remained of Carthage was delivered to the flames, and the colony of Dido and Cæsar lay desolate above two hundred years, till a part, perhaps a twentieth, of the old circumference was repeopled by the first of the Fatimite caliphs.
Certain expeditions, however, were made in the neighborhood, and several towns fell into the hands of the Christians. Meantime, news arrived that an army of Egyptian Arabs who acknowledged the Fatimite caliphs, and had as yet resisted the attempt of the Turks to usurp dominion over all the followers of the Prophet had captured Jerusalem.
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