Bensalem Himmich - The Theocrat

Al-Fadl remained riveted to the spot, silent and morose like a statue. Then he collapsed. “O Abu Rakwa,” he muttered, “how right your prediction was.” With that his slaves carried him to his home, where, as historians all agree, “he fell ill. Al-Hakim visited him two or three times and gave him many estates. He recovered, but a few days later al-Hakim had him arrested and gruesomely murdered.” 19

Just a few hours after Abu Rakwa’s death the news reached Barqa. A week’s mourning was decreed. Everyone, men and women, young and old, was in a state of alert. They all gathered in mosques and public squares to pray for the souls of their martyrs, and listened in humble contemplation as the contents of their imam’s will were read and interpreted by Shihab al-Din and Hammu.

“At the very moment,” it said, “when I set myself to speak in praise of God for all his benefits and trials, then the world collapses in my eyes and I prostrate myself. My children from Barqa and all oppressed lands, I shall rise again and tell you the truth, your sole heritage from me.

“You dear folk, apple of my eye! If you witness the violence of tyranny in your time and wander through the gloomy hollows of darkness, if you see people in oppressed territories being transferred from one prison to another and the poor and rebellious being murdered, do not despair. You are the promise, so you cannot give up! Never will you trammel yourselves on the paths of despair and surrender, nor amid the legions of mayhem and tyranny.

“Go forth into the world and flourish among the weak and hungry. It is among such folk that sorrow grows in heart and body, and anger along with them. They are family and support, your primary cause in this world and the next.

“Dear children of mine, I am not the last martyr. Take my place, and make my life a part of your own. Turn your lives into a weapon with which to confront the enemies of love and knowledge. Never submit or throw down your arms, Keep yourselves forever alert and ready for action. Resist, and victory will be yours; resist and resist again with all your might. Should you lose the battle and should chance betray you, you are still the source of inspiration and wonder. You will be the leaders for campaigns yet to come. For your offspring and those of the poor, certain victory is guaranteed. Peace be upon them and you!”

1. Between Humor and Revenge: Cairo Burns

[Al-Hakim] summoned commanders and sergeants. He ordered them to proceed to old Cairo [Fustat] and set it on fire. Anyone they captured was to be killed. … The fighting between slaves and populace lasted for three whole days. Each day al-Hakim used to ride out to the Muqattam Hills, climb the mountain, and look down. From there he could watch the fire and listen to the noise. When he asked about it, he would be told that the slaves were burning and sacking old Cairo. A pained expression would show on his face. “God curse them!” he would say. “Who told them to do that?”

IbnTaghribirdi,

Bright Stars Concerning the Rulers of Egypt and Cairo

In the final months of al-Hakim’s life, his mental breakdowns kept recurring. That forced him to stay within the confines of his own private domain of solitude and depression. “It’s not a throne I’m sitting on,” he kept saying to himself, “but rather a volcano, one that keeps spewing hatred, resentment, and anger.”

During this same period the people’s own volcano was itself spewing out manifestos and pamphlets of wide variety, all of which ridiculed al-Hakim and cast aspersions on his origins, lineage, and deeds. He used to spend long nights either in the Muqattam Hills or perched in the minaret of his mosque, perusing them over ant] over again. The ones with the biggest impact on his frayed nerves were those that had been widely copied and distributed, petitions that had already been forwarded either to him or to his father, a! — ’Aziz, before him. He focused on two of them in particular, confronting their scandalous contents with feverish eyes and stricken heart. The first was a placard that had once been placed right in front of al-’Aziz when he mounted the pulpit in a mosque:

To tyranny and oppression we are inured,

but not to heresy and stupidity.

If you are so gifted with knowledge of the unseen,

pray tell us who wrote this placard.

The second was the famous decree that the ‘Abbasid caliph, al-Qadir, had issued, signed by a number of judges and religious leaders, including some well-known Shi’ites. It cast aspersions on the lineage and doctrine of the Fatimid caliphs. Its key section has this to say:

They trace their descent back to Daysan ibn Sa‘id al-Khuram. They are all colleagues of heretics and sperm of devils. Their doctrine is one whereby they seek access to God, believing themselves to be following God’s injunction to the ulama’ , namely to serve as a conduit to people at large. They all believe the current ruler in Egypt, Mansur ibn Nizar (known by the name al-Hakim — may God subject him to perdition, disgrace, and exemplary punishment!), to be the son of Mu‘add ibn Isma’il ibn ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Sa‘id — may God grant him no aid! — who. when he came to Tunis was called ‘Ubaydallah and took the title al-Mahdi. He and his vile forebears — God’s curse on him and them! — are pseudo-kharijis; they have no claims to descent from the line of ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib. The claim is totally false. They do not even realize that the true descendants of ‘Ali have always maintained that those Kharijis are all imposters. While the Fatimid pretenders were still in Tunis; this information was already so widely acknowledged in Mecca and Medina that no one could have been taken in by their lies. The current ruler of Egypt and his forebears are infidels, fornicators, liars, and heretics. They believe in the dualist doctrine of the Zoroastrians; they have abrogated legal penalties and legitimized prostitution; they have shed blood and cursed prophets; they have insulted forebears and claimed divine attributes. Written in Rabi‘ al-Akhir 402. This text is signed by a number of people.” 20

These texts, with their widely variant length and level of vitriol, had a dire effect on al-Hakim’s entire mental state; they triggered a sordid retrospective beset by the foulest of memories and a sense of sheer panic. A savage whirlwind took control and dragged him inexorably down to self-destruction. While he was in such a frame of mind, his memory would take him back to a period a quarter of a century earlier when Egyptian humor at his expense had reached some sort of zenith. During a tour of Fustat, people had rigged up a female mummy in his path and covered it with a shawl and veil; in her outstretched hand they put a sealed letter which looked just like a petition requesting redress for some wrongdoing done to her. When al-Hakim took the letter and read it, he almost fell off his donkey, so foul was the abuse directed at him — disgusting language of a kind he had never heard in his life before. He was furious and ordered the woman to be tortured, then burned alive. They told him that she was actually a statue made out of strips of paper. That made him even angrier, but he decided to bide his time before taking revenge on the people of old Cairo for the way they had insulted and poked fun at him.

Had that long awaited opportunity finally come today, I wonder? By now, Egyptians were using houses and rooftops to send each other thousands of letters every day. They filled walls and gateways with slogans and placards, all of them trying to outdo each other in vituperative eloquence as they reviled al-Hakim’s name.

The people in old Cairo dubbed their campaign against al-Hakim’s tyranny “resistance by sarcasm”; their revolt was called the “papers revolt.” These two tags were widely used; young and old adopted them as a means of expressing their desire for freedom and confrontation.