Caliph al-Aziz died of sudden serious illness in Bilbeis as he traveled toward Palestine and Syria. His 11 year old son was also on the trip, and he was summoned to his dying father’s side. Al-Aziz put his turban on his son’s head and hailed as the Commander of the Faithful. The child took the regnal name of al-Hakim. In contrast to the half-Sudanese Twelver Imams whose line had gone into hiding, Imam-Caliph al-Hakim had bright blue eyes. Just as today a child who looks different from his family might be teased that he’s a bastard, al-Hakim was sometimes mocked as a closet Christian born to a Christian mother.
A Mamluk eunuch who acted as tutor to al-Hakim became the de facto regent until the boy grew up. There was constant fighting during al-Hakim’s years. First the Berbers rebelled, then the Qarmatians in Arabia attacked, and of course, the Abbasids in Baghdad (and their Turkish viziers and generals) constantly tried to put down the Shi’ite threat. In 1011, the Abbasid Caliph issued a proclamation declaring that the Fatimid Caliph was a fraud, not descended from Fatima at all.
Caliph al-Hakim is the most famous of the Fatimids for two reasons. First, he probably had bipolar disorder and so he had periods when his ruling style is best described as crazy. Second, a group of Ismailis in Egypt and Syria became particularly attached to him, and this was the foundation of the Druze religion.
By al-Hakim’s time, the Fatimids controlled not only Palestine and parts of Syria, but also the holy cities in Arabia. With the Ismailis in charge of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, pilgrim policy tipped in favor of Shi’ites.
Al-Hakim’s first act on coming into his majority seems to have been a purge of older Fatimid nobles. His second was the public posting of curses against Aisha, Mohammed’s wife, and the first 3 Caliphs for how they treated Fatima’s and Ali’s family. As an Ismaili Shi’ite, he was deeply hostile to the Sunnis. In retaliation, Baghdad commanded a group of scholars to issue the Baghdad Manifesto. They also accused al-Hakim of favoring Christians and Jews over (Sunni) Muslims.
Now began the Caliph’s crazy period. He may have been trying to prove he wasn’t that nice to Christians and Jews, but his actions went well past that. Legends of his insane decisions vary; Sunni historians credit him with much worse things than Shi’ite ones. Of course he did some good things, like founding a second large mosque, Dar al-Hikma (i.e. Hakim, his name) that became the city’s second university. But he did crazy pretty thoroughly:
Al-Hakim banned various vegetables, shellfish, and chess. He ordered all dogs killed because their barking was intolerable. He outlawed wine and the Christian holidays of Easter and Christmas. He ordered Christians to wear a large iron cross around their necks, and Jews to wear a wooden calf (or a bell!). Their women had to wear non-matching shoes, red and black. He sacked a town near Cairo, perhaps due to its large Jewish population (Fustat is where Maimonides later lived).
From 1007 to 1012, he ordered the wholesale destruction of churches, monasteries and synagogues across his realm, which included the Holy Land. Constantine’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher was dismantled stone by stone (1009). By 1012, Arab historians say that no churches or synagogues remained in Palestine.
After that, he backed off considerably on the Christians and Jews, and instead began to persecute Sunni Muslims and people in general. In 1014, he ordered women to stay indoors so to enforce this, he forbade the making of women’s shoes. He executed countless people, including close friends and complete strangers. Sometimes, they say, he did the killing personally.
His zeal for the Ismaili faith began to win him significant support among the most fanatical Shi’ites. One Persian preacher, Hamza, declared that al-Hakim was the Incarnation of God, 1000 years after Christ (more about Hamza next). This was perhaps the only attention Muslims paid to the Millennium, since they counted years since the Prophet. Christians, by contrast, were swept with Millennial zeal and some expected the end of the world. (Lucky for them, they didn’t need to worry about digital dates that used only two digits for the year.)
Al-Hakim grew a little more mellow and ascetic with age. His reign wasn’t bad for the Fatimid dynasty in some ways; but in others it was a disaster. In 1021, he went into the desert to meditate, and he never came back. History assumes that his older sister had him assassinated; she became regent for his young son.
The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was rebuilt later by the Byzantine Emperor, with the Caliph’s permission. The church that Crusaders later prayed in was this recently-built basilica, begun in 1042. But the stories of Christian persecution and martyrdom remained in circulation, even if the church had been rebuilt, its previous destruction was constantly talked about. Al-Hakim’s mad ideological rampage was the first step toward the international war we call the Crusades.
A Short History of the Ismailis by Farhad Daftary
The Lost History of Christianity by Philip Jenkins
The Coptic Christian Heritage by Lois M. Farag