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But their adverse fortune, and the wide extent of the Mussulman empire, allowed an ample scope for every bold and artful imposture, who claimed affinity with the holy seed: the sceptre of the Almohades, in Spain and Africa; of the Fatimites, in Egypt and Syria; of the Sultans of Yemen; and of the Sophis of Persia; has been consecrated by this vague and ambiguous title.
The few commanding figures among the governors, Ibn-Tulun, the Ikshid, Kafur, were foreigners, and even these were but a step above the stereotyped official. They essayed no great extension of their dominions; they did not try to extinguish their dangerous neighbors the schismatic Fatimites; and though they possessed and used fleets, they ventured upon no excursions against Europe.
The Ortokides, who, as we have just related, were dispossessed by Mostali, returned thither, and maintained themselves in it against Redouan, Prince of Aleppo. They were expelled once more by the Fatimites, who were masters of the place when the crusaders first appeared on the confines of Syria.
Not till Dhahir's successor came to the throne in 1036 was Aleppo reconquered by the Fatimites, but only to fall, after a few years, again into the hands of a Kilabite, whom the caliph was obliged to acknowledge as governor until he of his own free will exchanged the city for several other towns in Syria; but even then the strife about the possession of Aleppo was not yet at an end.
Mohammed Ikschid, another Turk, about thirty years after, having in his turn seized the throne of the Pharaohs, carried his arms into Palestine, and reduced the capital. The Fatimites, again, issuing from the sands of Cyrene, expelled the Ikschidites from Egypt in 968, and conquered several towns in Judea.
Said a great German writer: "When all on land was steeped in particularism, the Hansa, our people upon the sea, alone remained faithful to the German spirit and to German tradition." From A.D. 969 to 1171 the Arabian dynasty of caliphs called Fatimites because they professed to trace their descent from Fatima, the daughter of Mahomet reigned in Egypt.
During the reign of Kafur, which only lasted two years and four months, the greater portion of Said was seized by the Fatimites, already masters of Fayum and Alexandria, and the conquerors were on the point of encroaching still farther, when Kafur died in the year 357 a.h. Ahmed, surnamed Abu'l Fawaris, the son of Abu'l-Hasan Ali, and consequently grandson of Mu-hammed el-Ikshid, succeeded Kafur.
But the caliphs of Bagdad had lost their authority in the West; the Aglabites and Fatimites usurped the provinces of Africa, their emirs of Sicily aspired to independence; and the design of conquest and dominion was degraded to a repetition of predatory inroads. In the sufferings of prostrate Italy, the name of Rome awakens a solemn and mournful recollection.
In every age, a principle of toleration has been fortified by a sense of interest: and the revenue of the prince and his emir was increased each year, by the expense and tribute of so many thousand strangers. The revolution which transferred the sceptre from the Abbassides to the Fatimites was a benefit, rather than an injury, to the Holy Land.
Edessa was also captured by the Crusaders, and in the middle of the summer of 1098 they reached Jerusalem, then in the hands of the Fatimites. El-Mustali b'Illah Abu'l Kasim, son of Mustanssir, was then on the throne, but he was only a nominal ruler, for El-Afdhal, a son of El-Gemali, had the chief voice in the affairs of the kingdom. It was the army of Kasim that had captured Jerusalem.
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